Photo courtesy of the Daily Mail.
Students Beware…
A new study in Science News magazine explains exactly what happens to our brains when we don’t get enough sleep… and it isn’t pretty.
Since sleep allows our brains to clear up excess connections formed during the day, our brains become, “more reactive as hours awake accumulate.” This helps explain why sleep deprivation can trigger seizures and hallucinations in some people.
Sleep, as any student in an 8:30 am class will tell you, is an essential bodily function.
One study has shown that depriving rats of REM sleep limits their lifespan to 5 weeks and depriving them of all stages of sleep will kill them within 3 weeks (rats typically live 3-5 years).
One survey finds two thirds of college students pull at least one all nighter in a given semester. We can only recommend to those of you reading this at 3AM that you put down the NoDoz and head for bed…or the couches outside the game room…whichever is closer.
Two of your websites are invalid: the rat experiment and what happens to our brains. The survey about the college students showed only a slight decrease in GPA. This could be due to confound variables such as the students who pull all nighters are poor in time management and procrastinate. Also, pulling all-nighters may be the result of something else that is might be the actual cause of the slightly lower GPA’s.
However, point taken…. sleep is important.