Sleep Deprivation Has a Serious Effect on Mental Activity
Sleep deprivation is a widespread problem, especially in the United States. It is well known that a lack of sleep drastically affects mental performance, which is specifically a major problem for students. We always hear that it is necessary to get at least 6-7 hours every night to be well rested and be able to function at peak performance. A lot of times, people are unable to get a sufficient amount of sleep due to a busy schedule, or an inability to effectively plan out their ways well, but how much does this really affect our mental function?
The amount of sleep that people get as a society has a major effect on the quality of life and the interactions that we have with one another. This article describes the true effect that sleep deprivation has on mental functionality, and performs 3 different experiments to test this theory. The first experiment involved 23 young adults who got sufficient sleep for the first night, and stayed awake for the second. After each night, the participants were given a scenario and asked to rate their generosity. About 80% of participants were less likely to help others when they were sleep deprived. On top of this question, the researchers also observed brain activity from an MRI, examining neural activity. When sleep deprived, there was noticeable reduced activity in the region of the brain associated with empathy. In a second experiment, 136 participants logged their sleep for 4 nights. Similarly to before, it was found that the less sleep these participants got, the less generous and empathetic they were. Finally, one last experiment was run during Daylight Savings Time. Charities were examined before and after the change in the time, where people lose an hour of sleep. Prior to the time change, the total donations of the charity averaged $82 per day, whereas in the week after it dropped to $73 per day.
Evidently, based on the experiments conducted in this article, sleep does have a drastic change on the generosity and empathy felt by those lacking sufficient sleep. Proven in the MRI, brain activity is decreased in people who sleep less. Although generosity is what is tested in this article, this definitely comes into play when considering performance of students in general. It is important to get a sufficient amount of sleep in order to perform at your peak, despite the fact that we often feel as if we don’t have enough time.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/sleep-deprivation-people-selfish-less-generous-brain-activity
Caitlin Hooper (6)
Hi Caitlin! It's so interesting just how much sleep impacts our daily lives. I knew there was a correlation between lack of sleep and general attentiveness, memory, and brain functionality, but it affects so much more than I thought. I found it very interesting how the study would target generosity, as that isn't a trait that I would expect to be a strong correlation with lack of sleep. As you talked about many of the short term effects, do you know if there are there any long term side effects of lack of sleep?
ReplyDeleteHi Caitlin. I enjoyed reading your article and the results make a lot of sense. When sleep deprived or even super tired, it is hard to think about other people when your body has not taken care of itself. Lack of sleep also causes increased irritability and anger, so your mood is significantly altered. Do you know how exactly this plays into academic performance of students?
ReplyDeleteHi Chloe, I would assume it would be for a similar reason as mentioned above. When someone is sleep deprived, there is much less neural activity happening in the region of the brain related to generosity. In general, I believe the brain's neural activity would be reduced in general making academic performance much less efficient.
DeleteHi Caitlin! Lack of sleep influencing our levels of empathy and generosity was not a connection I had made before reading your post. Although, I think that there is social understanding that people tend to function differently when they are sleep deprived (for example, when people don't get sleep and get called cranky), it's cool to see there's an actual scientific connection. Do you know if sleep deprivation can impact age groups in different ways?
ReplyDelete- Ritika Koirala
DeleteHi Caitlin! The topic of sleep deprivation in terms of school performance has been a hard driven topic for the past few years (at least from my experience); from what it seems, 6-8 hours is the sweet spot for sleeping. However, do you know if there are any exceptions to this rule as for how many hours someone should be getting? I know some people's sleeping schedules vary depending on their day-to-day lives so people will sleep only X amount of hours at night and nap interspersed throughout the day. Or some need a lot more than 8 hours just to get by.
ReplyDeleteHi Lydia, I think everyone works slightly differently in relation to sleep. Like you mentioned, some people need a lot more sleep to functional at the same normal level as someone else. I believe this is partly related to genetics, and also partly related to how everyone goes about their daily life.
DeleteI wonder if this is why people are more cranky and irritable when they haven’t slept, because their empathy is affected when sleep deprived. This is very eye opening. I do find it shocking that something like sleeping can cause us to act differently, to the point of being rude and less altruistic. Your point about students being sleep deprived has me thinking about how high school started so early in the morning, even though everyone knows you need sufficient sleep to be successful.
ReplyDeleteHi Elizabeth, this is also something I have thought about before. If sleep is so essential, why does high school start to early and require such a long day of work that it is nearly impossible to get a full 7 hours of sleep? I think this is something that should definitely be taken into consideration in the future
DeleteHi! This was such an interesting topic to read about. I knew that sleep is very important and I wonder how these results would have differed if “power naps” were taken. I know many professions in the medical world such as doctors, nurses and surgeons have over 14-16 hour shifts and would take time to rest and nap during them. Do you think naps would be beneficial?
ReplyDelete