Learning Challenge: Sleep Depravation

I have found through the course of this pandemic that many of my college friends, myself included, are having trouble finding reasons to stay on a proper sleep schedule. Many of our classes post recorded lectures that we can do any time we want, so the choice to fall asleep at a decent hour lies mainly with ourselves, especially for those who don't live at home. 

In the article "How Sleep Deprivation Decays the Mind and Body"(source), the author Seth Maxon describes the effects lack of sleep can have on anyone, no matter how sane they seem to be. At 18 years old, Maxon conducted an experiment on himself to see how long he could stay awake, driven by expresso and a trip abroad. He made it around 4 days, collapsed involuntarily in the middle of an airport, and woke up in a hospital. I have no idea how he made it that long. The few times I've pulled an allnighter, I've fallen asleep at 5 pm the next day. 

I've always been interested in sleep, so this article confirmed my earlier learning that there is still very little known about why we need to sleep. However, Dr. Steven Feinsilver proposed a question I had not known before: Is it possible to train how much sleep we do need between the times bordering too much and too little? While doctors say we should need an average of 7.25 hours of sleep, some people do perfectly fine on 5 and others unfortunately need much more. Is it possible to change that to get closer to the average?

 This article explained the reasons behind sleep debt in a way that was easy to understand. The correlation with proper sleep and living longer is astounding to me. I understand it, but it sounds strange to some people. Sleep is very much essential to every body system, of a restoration pathway that provides a lot of nutrient release for all our cells to use. Without this, our body goes "out of sync". But what I really found intriguing was that there is evidence that an undiscovered toxic substance present in the bloodstream as a byproduct of daytime energy production normally resolved by proper sleep may be the cause of the symptoms of sleep deprivation. 

The concept of "sleep debt" is very interesting, and something I continually learn about. As an aspiring dentist and child of a dentist, I constantly learn about sleep. Why, you ask? Some dentists now have the ability to help cure sleep apnea by means other than a CPAP machine because of the correlation between breathing and sleep, which is mentioned in this article by Dr. Feinsilver. I am also very intrigued by this correlation, and learn more and more about it every day through discussions with my mom and many books. 

Sleepy Cat

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