The Importance of Sleep Essay Example

Sleep is when the human body shuts off to fix and repair itself. Sleep also prevents cancer. While sleeping the human body creates melatonin, which helps to protect the cells from getting damaged and then getting different types of diseases such as cancer. So the less sleep, the higher percentage there is of getting cancer or diseases. Sleep also prevents depression. If people get less than the needed amount of sleep they don't feel very enthusiastic and everything is boring for them. And not seeing things the colorful way can cause people to feel that there is no purpose for life. As an effect people become depressed. So make the right choice of having the right amount of sleep each day. While sleeping thoughts are going into two categories. First is the short term memory. Short term memory contains material for no more than a day. For example, eating breakfast or playing outside won’t stay in the memory for 10 yrs. However long term memory is the material people might remember from 30 years ago. 

Kids need more sleep than adults because they are still in their “learning age”. Sleep also helps the human body to think, process and function normally. While sleeping the heartbeat and breathing slows down, and blood pressure stabilizes. 

Even though sleep is the most relaxing part of the day (not counting reading the Bible), a large number of people manage to skip sleep. After skipping a couple days of normal sleep, people can start having problems with their health. Catching up with the sleeping schedule is never easy. And at least two days of normal sleep would be needed to catch up. Here is the chart for the different amounts of sleep that are based on ages.

4-12 months need 12-16 hrs of sleep a day

Ages 1-2 need 11-14 hrs of sleep daily

Ages 3-5 need 10-13 hrs of sleep a day

Ages 6-13 need 9-11 hrs of sleep a day

Ages 14-18 need 8-10 hrs of sleep a day

Ages 18-64 need 7-9 hrs of sleep a day

Ages 65+ need 7-8 hrs of sleep a day

Staying up for a whole week and then trying to catch up in one day is a bad idea.

There are 5 stages of sleep:

Stage 1 to 3 - Light sleep

Stage 4 - Deep sleep

Stage 5 - REM (Rapid eye movement sleep)

One effect of not enough sleep can cause car crashes. For instance, if driving after having 3 hours of sleep, the person's eyes are closing and they can't drive normally. This situation can easily cause a car crash. Sleep also improves memory. While sleeping, the brain kind of relaxes. Meaning that the brain isn't thinking about playing football or watching a movie. The brain is thinking and processing all the major things that happened during the day. As an effect people become depressed. So make the right choice of having the right amount of sleep each day.