Sleep - An Essential of Health

          A huge part of maintaining good health is getting adequate sleep. As a science major, I have noticed that this topic has become especially prevalent in the science fields within the last fifteen years. There are a seemingly endless amount of research papers and websites with information about the essentials of sleep. Like most people, I know that getting about eight hours of sleep is recommended by the majority of medical professionals, but I found myself wanting to know why.

Last week, I pulled an “all-nighter” studying for my microbiology exam. When I walked to my exam at 7:45am, I felt delirious, like I was in another world. The exam took me longer than usual to complete and I found it was hard to comprehend what I was reading and remember what I had studied. When I got home (after a short nap), I researched my experience to see what professionals had to say. It turns out that in a recent study, which was published in Neuron, Dr. Marcos Frank and his colleagues at Pennsylvania School of Medicine observed something new to the medical world. They saw observable changes in the cells of a sleeping brain which consequently allow for memories to form. Dr. Frank states that when a person goes to sleep, “it’s like you’ve thrown a switch, and all of a sudden, everything is turned on that’s necessary for making synaptic changes that form the basis of memory formation” (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090211161934.htm). This would explain why I had trouble remembering things I had just learned and why I had such trouble reading the questions.

Besides my lack of sleep affecting my mental health, I suspected that it also contributed to the cold I had two days later. I seem to find quite frequently that I get sick after a lack of sleep. Better-sleep-better-life.com explains that when you are stressed or have been exposed to bacteria, sleep is extra important to maintain good health. The site states that “your body produces extra protein molecules while you’re sleeping that helps strengthen your ability to fight infection and stay healthy” (http://www.better-sleep-better-life.com/benefits-of-sleep.html). This would obviously explain why I got sick after not sleeping for 36 hours. My immune system would most likely have fought off my cold provided more sleep.

This topic is definitely something that I want to do more research on and blog about in the future. I have only pulled one all-nighter in my college days, but I will absolutely never do it again. In my opinion, it seems rather pointless to stay up all night studying if it makes it more difficult for our brains to remember what they learned. It is also not worth getting sick which affects you doing work for other classes. Maintaining my mental and physical health as a college kid is hard enough without burdening my brain with a lack of sleep.