Why Sleep is Vital: The Importance of a Good Sleep

Sleep Deprivation is a state caused by inadequate quantity or quality of sleep and it is a serious health risk. The human body needs at least seven hours of sleep to function properly. Just like oxygen, sleep is essential for life. Many people do not get enough sleep; they do not realize that sleep is as important to the human body as food and water. According to HuffPost, “An estimated 83.6 million adults in the US are sleep deprived.” Sleep deprivation is caused by personal choice, work, and the sleep environment and it affects health, thinking and concentration, and the risk of car accidents.

Most people are sleep deprived because they choose to get less sleep. They underestimate how much sleep they need to stay healthy. “Today much of our society is still operating under the collective delusion that sleep is simply time lost to other pursuits that it can be endlessly appropriated at will to satisfy our increasingly busy lives and overstuffed to-do lists. For some people, it is an electronic device keeping them up. For others, maybe they do not feel tired so they stay up and watch TV. They may say “ Just one more episode, ” but three episodes later when they look at the clock and it says three a.m., the realization hits that they have lost track of time and they will not be getting much, if any, sleep that night. It is not a great feeling; if a person knows they need to sleep, it would not be a smart idea to stay up any longer than they have to.

Another reason people are sleep deprived is because their work is keeping them up. The majority of workers work long-hour shifts, which can be very tiring. All they want to do after work is to lay down and go to sleep, but they cannot. Many people stay up late to work on something for their job because they have little time to finish. Or, perhaps they cannot sleep because of the stress the job gives them. Stress causes many people to lie awake at night tossing and turning.

The most common cause of lack of sleep is the sleep environment. It is almost impossible to fall asleep uncomfortable. If the room is too hot, too cold, not dark enough, or too loud, it can be difficult to fall asleep. If the bed is not comfortable enough, that also makes it difficult to fall asleep. Some people find it hard to sleep if their pillow is not “fluffy” enough. Others blame it on their mattress. No matter what the factor is, if something in the room is even slightly off, that can affect a person’s ability to fall asleep.

Sleep deprivation has a huge impact on a person’s health. While someone is asleep, their immune system produces protective, infection-fighting substances like cytokines. It uses these substances to combat foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses. Cytokines also help a person sleep, giving their immune system more energy to defend their body against illness. It may take longer to recover from an illness without enough sleep. Long-term sleep deprivation also increases the risk for chronic conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease. 

Scientists measuring sleepiness have found that sleep deprivation leads to lower alertness and concentration. It makes it more difficult to focus and pay attention, which can cause a person to be more easily confused. This hampers their ability to perform tasks that require logical reasoning or complex thought. Sleepiness also impairs judgement. Making decisions is more difficult because a sleep deprived person cannot assess situations as well and pick the right behavior. 

New research suggests that lack of sleep and poor sleep can cause drivers to fall asleep behind the wheel and get into serious and potentially fatal car accidents. Sleep duration of fewer than 6 hours at night contributes to car accidents, the study found. Drivers who have fewer than 6 hours of sleep at night for three months prior to the study exhibited “almost a two-fold increased risk” of crashing their vehicles after falling asleep at the wheel. The study also found that patients treated for illness, injury and/or pain have a higher risk for traffic accidents than patients of good health. 

In conclusion, never underestimate the importance of a good night’s sleep. Humans need sleep in order to survive. There is too much at stake for someone to sacrifice sleep. Lack of sleep can even result in death in serious cases. An expert witness in the Micheal Jackson trial said that the musician had gone 60 days without REM sleep, with inevitably led to his death.