God created humans in a way nobody will ever understand. He made rest one of the important activities our body needed to be refurbished the next day. After six days of creation, God rested on the seventh day just to teach humans the importance of rest. Sleep is a natural act in which the body and mind is at constant rest for hours, usually at night time, to help the body regain its strength and ability for the next day. During sleep, the body is inactive and the person has his or her eyes closed in a relaxed mode and the nervous system is at constant rest. Sleep plays an essential role in the body just like walking, talking, eating and drinking, and it is necessary for growth and development of an individual.
Without sleep we would all be stressed and worn out just like an “old raggedy engine.” Lack of sleep causes you to be tired during the day since the body has not had enough time to recover from the previous day’s activities. Also, the body is prone to diseases such as kidney failure, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke without the right amount of sleep because the antibodies and hormones are not functioning the way they should. Depriving oneself of sleep may cause weight gain and result in random mood swings, which may include a person being sad, angry or cranky (Stickgold 53). Currently, College students indulge in the act of not sleeping which results in students not performing too well in their academics. As students, the mind is a major tool to succeed and without sleep our brains cannot retain information adequately, which therefore leads to an increased risk of getting a lower grade point average and an increased risk of compromised learning and academic failure.
College is where students receive tertiary education to be whatever they want to be in life. As compared to all levels of education, college has the greatest amount of work load and it requires more personal studying in order to succeed. Students are drowned with schoolwork, a job and extracurricular activities which takes most of their personal study time. After students are done with work and extracurricular activities, they have to stay up for extra hours doing homework, writing papers and studying for tests and quizzes, forgetting their minds cannot function adequately without a good night’s sleep or a minimum six-hour rest. Sleep interferes with the concentration levels, memory and ability to learn, and without it studying becomes harder, leaving students frustrated. When it comes to school work a lot of memorization is involved and without the brain working at its maximum potential, it is hard to retain information necessary to pass exams and quizzes. Tests have proven that twenty percent of students who fail is due to sleep deprivation and their inability to retain important information. “The official grades, provided by the university register, showed that students with a lower performance were those with later bedtimes and wake-up times on both weekdays and weekend days” (Curcio 330). Sleep is therefore definitely correlated with the academic performance of an individual.
A person’s mood is defined as a person’s temporary state of mind which consists of temper, humor, spirit and tenor. Sleep plays a major role in the mood and mental state of an individual at a given time. Lack of sleep causes an individual to be more overwhelmed and overburdened and affects the individual’s feelings whether happy, sad, angry or cranky. There is an increase in the production of emotional and mode images which therefore disrupts the brain’s capacity for other important functions when an individual gets little or no rest at all. Showing different moods is a way of expressing how tired and sleep deprived an individual is. People who have less sleep or are deprived of sleep are more irritable by little things they see or little things other people do, they become less even tempered, show signs of stress and are less happy than normal. Loss of sleep can also cause an individual to be more depressed and it also increases negative emotional stress on the individual, which may lead to major mood swings. People who are usually happy and peppy become less friendly and show a low positive attitude towards all situations at that particular moment. Students go through tension during the day and they tend to have more negative outlook on life and their academics. They also lose the ability to maintain their point of view, which is the inability to relax and stay calm and increases their sense of pressure. Continuous lack of sleep may lead to depression and anxiety which may further cause different sleep disorders.
Many students develop some diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, stroke and kidney failure. Lack of sleep hinders the function of the antibodies, which fight disease-causing mechanisms in the body, which leads to a higher risk of getting diseases. Without sleep, an individual’s immune system may change how the antibodies respond to foreign and harmful substances (Pace- Schott 135). Sleep is also involved in the healing and repair of blood vessels, which causes the heart to function at its full potential. Sleep deprivation interferes with hormones which help maintain a healthy balance of what people eat, whether they are hungry or full. Therefore, students eat more than they are supposed to which leads to obesity and hypertension. The release of insulin in the body, which controls the blood sugar level, is affected by sleep deficiency and may alter the release of insulin which will increase the risk of diabetes. Growth and development is affected by sleep, by the release of hormones that promote normal growth. The hormones also increase and boost the mass of muscles and play a role in fertility and puberty.
Sleep plays a major role on an individual’s well-being and physical health during his or her lifetime. Sleep helps control the functions and regulations of the organs in the body. As college students, retaining information is necessary for an individual to succeed academically. Without rest, it is hard for students to stay up, take necessary notes and pay attention in class for their upcoming exams. Also students cannot retain necessary information needed for their tests and quizzes, therefore leading to failure in school and a drastic decrease in their grade point average. In addition, lack of sleep can cause long term effects such as memory loss and brain damage. Continuous sleep deprivation may lead to depression and anxiety and future sleep disorders. It can also cause mood swings which may hinder an individual’s social relationship with others. Even though lack of sleep does not kill an individual physically, it interferes with the functions of the antibodies and hormones which makes the individual prone to illnesses. To be able to have enough time to sleep, students must stay away from caffeine and they must learn to manage their time wisely. Therefore, students should take sleep seriously in order to succeed and stay healthy.