Sleep and Counting Sheep

Sleep and Counting Sheep
Matthew S Corman
Bethany College
Abstract
This paper is a summary of two handouts that test our sleep habits and determine if the amount of sleep is enough for our needs. These explanations are all pulled from personal experience and our book Exploring Psychology by David Myers. There are several theories used in this paper that are unproven but are supported by many researchers as credible. Sleep protects theory suggests that through many years of our species the animals that slept during the night time hours survived (Siegel, 2009). Also the sleep helps us recuperate theory suggests that sleep helps us restore and repair brain tissue (Gilestro et al., 2009; Siegel, 2003; Vyazovskiy et al., 2008). Then the sleep helps restore and rebuild our fading memories of the day’s experience theory that says sleep consolidates our memories-it strengthens and stabilizes neural memory traces (Racsmany et al., 2010; Rasch & Born, 2008). Followed by the sleep feeds creative thinking theory that suggests sleep improves creative thinking and even has inspired many researchers (Ross, 2006). More common pace is the boost that a good night’s sleep gives us (Wagner et al., 2004). Finally sleep supports growth theory which shows during sleep the pituitary gland releases growth hormone that can improve muscle development in the body (James Maas and Rebecca Robbins, 2010). This paper examines and uses these theory’s to either confirm or deny that my sleep habit are healthy.

Sleep and Counting Sheep

I believe my sleep habits are excellent for a young man of my age. After taking the test in handout eight I am on the line but I would not consider it sleep deprived to sleep extra hours on the week end. As for handout nine I only scored a five which is considerably below the mark of sleepy. I stand beside my claim to be maintaining a healthy sleep schedule.
As an active member of the baseball team on campus my schedule can be anything but normal, but my body seems to roll with the punches. As discussed in class our mind may use sleep to strengthen neural pathways while we sleep. Seeing as in sports we are always learning new plays and different ways to read the game, this essential to my effectiveness as an athlete. Body building also an efficient way to become a star athlete could not be maintained with lack of sleep as the growth hormone needed to build muscle is released during sleep (James Maas and Rebbecca Robbins, 2010). One part of my training that may not match with these theory’s is early morning weight if the James Maas and Rebbecca Robbins theory is correct then this may be counterproductive to athletes throughout the world. Watching your weight can also be affected by sleep. Sleep deprivation increases ghrelin levels, a hunger arousing hormone, and decrease its counterpart leptin (Chen et al., 2008; Knutsonet al., 2007; Schoenborn & Adams, 2008) Something overlooked by many athletes is sleeps effect on reaction time and visual accuracy; two of the most essential parts of baseball (Lim & Dinges, 2010). Any way you look at it sleep is essential for an athlete on any level and should be taken into account by weight watchers.
Athletics is one side of this story but how does sleep affect our studies in school? As an avid procrastinator, I find myself waiting till the last minute to finish any type of homework. This often means staying up far too late into the night. I have always believed I could just make up the sleep throughout the rest of the week, but this is not true according to William Dement (1999, pg 64). In fact this could take up to two weeks for my body to get back on track and on schedule. So in the long run I am hurting myself is one night worth two weeks, I think not. Getting enough sleep can be hard and I am sometimes forced to catch up on some sleep in class, but this is an obvious sign of sleep deprivation. These simple signs show that I do need more sleep than I have given my body, and I should definitely take them seriously.
As with any young man, I feel I am invincible to sickness but is there any truth behind being weakened by loss of sleep? The answer is a resounding yes! When our body feels tired it is often for a reason. At the set in of an infection, your body tries to get more sleep and boost its immune system, but is often overridden by our mind (Motivala & Irwin, 2007). “In one experiment, when researchers exposed volunteers to a cold virus, those who had averaged less than seven hours of sleep were three times as likely to develop a cold” (Cohen et al., 2009). In a bigger context, people who average more than seven to eight hours of sleep tend to live longer than their counter part (Dement, 1999; Dew et al., 2003).
Out of my original conclusions, I find I was wrong my sleep habits are not healthy, and I find myself needing at-least two to three more hours of sleep at night. This should improve my ability to retain knowledge and stay awake in class. This in turn should help my performance on the baseball field through reaction time, visual attention tasks, and attention span. Besides being dangerous, sleep deprivation is likely to catch up to you eventually in depression (Gregory et al., 2009). In conclusion, my sleep habit could use some fine tuning and I plan on maintaining a solid sleep schedule from now on.

Citation
Myers, D. G. (2012) . Exploring Psychology: 9th edition. New York, NY: Worth Publishers