Essay About Human Sleep And Modern Life

Human Sleep
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Human Sleep
Modern life is full of busy things we do, but we all can agree that sleep is one of our
favorite things to do. Almost every person would love to spend a whole day in bed. But
in our time people choose staying up late and wake up early. There are just too many
things to do, appointments, deadlines, and the rest of the world does not go off of our
own schedule. Therefore, the majority of the population of the United States is sleep
deprived. Although the research on human sleep is very complex, experts do seem to
agree on a few basic facts and concerns These include, the feeling of being tired and
needing sleep is a basic drive of nature, like hunger, several sleep disorders are
characterized by very severe and impairing daytime sleepiness, older children never feel
sleepy during the day, and “sleep debt” is defined as a loss of sleep and is like debt
because you have to pay/sleep if back eventually to get back to normal cycle” (Dement
and Vaughan, 334). When it comes to individual sources, William C. Dement and
Christopher Vaughan were primarily concerned with peoples ignorance and unknown
information on Sleep Debt, Alcohol & Sleep Debt, and lastly Driving under the influence
of Sleep Debt. Ultimately, in my view, the most important and most interesting insights
to emerge are
In the article, “Sleep Debt and the Mortgaged Mind,” William C. Dement and
Christopher Vaughan describe how ignorance of sleep deprivation has led to major
accidents and mishaps around the world. Dement and Vaughan call sleep deprivation
“sleep debt.” they also use the metaphor “mortgaged mind” to help convey the central
message that sleep debt is like debt. According to their experiments, accumulated lost
sleep is like a mortgage, it must be paid back, and there is always a lender. They also
refer to sleep debt as “natures loan shark”, just as loan shark could hurt us to get his
money back, sleep deprivation could affect our health if the debt is not paid back on time.
(Dement and Vaughan, 331).
The two authors begin by describing the Exxon Valdez incident and the
Challenger space shuttle accident. Both prime examples of our ignorance of sleep
deprivation. Even to this day, many people still believe that the reason the tanker was
beached is because of alcohol consumption by the captain, when in fact, the cause of the
crude oil spill was from the captain being extremely sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation
also played a crucial role in the Challenger