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Anna Wolfe

Professor Johnson

Literature Review

29 March 2020

Sleep Equals Life

Sleep is a vital in order for a human to function properly. Without sleep people wouldn’t

be able to properly retain information in order to learn. Their motor skills will be minimal as well

as their ocular sight. Sleep deprivation can actually cause mental health issues, getting enough

sleep is a great way to improve your mental health (but not too much sleep). Technology has

developed profoundly in such a way as to now we can watch brain activity and see how sleep

deprivation physically affects the brain, besides monitoring one’s actions without sleep.

Sleep is such an important function to a human’s body that even your brain knows it. If

one is deprived of sleep for a certain amount of time, they will fall into microsleep. Lawrence

Leung took part in an experiment where he would go 40 hours without sleep. Leung was going to

purposely deprive himself of sleep while doctors and scientists gave him tests and challenged to

perform. Some of the challenges that Lawrence Leung preformed involved driving, solving

puzzles and even staring at a white dot on a black screen. After staring at this white dot on a

black screen twice before, Leung noticed it was bigger. Or was it? “As the brain becomes more

sleep deprived, it craves distraction. It seeks stimuli to try and keep itself awake.” Which is

exactly why Lawrence Leung believed that the circle he had previously stared at before was

getting bigger, his brain was attempting to stay awake so Leung wouldn’t fall under microsleep.
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About 19 hours into the experiment Leung experienced microsleep. People can fall into

microsleep and not even realize it; this only happens for a few seconds and can even happen

when the eyes are still open. Even though Leung was trying to stay awake at all costs, he still

went under without even realizing because his brain knows he needs the rest. A little past the 30-

hour mark of sleep deprivation, Leung starts crying. This is because processing emotions and

reacting to them become altered when sleep deprived. After 40 hours without sleep Lawrence

Leung went back the next day to get his results. He performed poorly when it came to attention

and inhibition, which is kind of like the ability to stop doing something. Professor Sean

Drummond at Monash University at the end of the video stated that even losing an hour of sleep

for a couple days a week can affect someone just as it did Lawrence Leung.

The reason that Lawrence Leung preformed so horribly when attempting to complete the

challenges he was given is because “sleep deprivation interferes with the ability of some brain

cells to function and communicate with one another.” This was found in a study by scientists at

UCLA. These very brain cells together tell Leung to stop (inhibition), just how big something is

and help him pay attention. According to scientists at UCLA sleep deprivation disrupts levels of

hormones. This may be the reason why Leung randomly started crying when he was trying to

keep himself awake for a long period of time. Sleep deprivation also affects one’s moods, their

focus and their reaction time. A slower reaction time and loss of focus is why Leung crashed his

stimulated car in one of his challenges. After Leung finished his experiment, he went to preform

jokes at a bar, oddly enough he had a hard time remembering them. This is because sleep is good

for memorizing things. Getting enough sleep is extremely important before a big test for

example. In my opinion if a woman did the same experiment that Leung did, she would show a

lot more signs of sleep deprivation. This is because women multitask and this takes more energy,
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therefore women need more sleep than men. Anyway, pertaining to this article, although Dr.

Michael Breus is a credible source, this article is two years old. Plus, he didn’t really give reason

to the information he provided, no solid reasons besides hearsay.

Sleep deprivation can affect all ages, it all starts at a young age. Getting the right amount

of sleep as a child, toddler, teen is very important because their brains are still under

development. Sleep deprivation can have a great effect on their performance and even their

mental health. A study was conducted on thirteen children, ages five to twelve years old.

Scientists compared the outcomes of a sleep schedule from 9PM compared to 2AM, both waking

up at the same time. In the results the researchers found that sleep deprivation “was linked with

some structural changes to the myelin sheath” (Bazian). The myelin sheath is a fatty coating on

nerve fibers that reach toward the back of the brain. Although the University of Colorado and

University Hospital Zurich researchers believed that the children’s sleep deprivation “lead to

deeper sleep patterns in the side and back regions of the brain” (Brazian). This means that sleep

deprivation may affect the developing brain. Although this experiment was presented Brazian

believes that this experiment only proves short term effects as well as the experiment not being

big enough, which is true they could’ve used more subjects. Either way, Brazian itself is an

uncreditable source because they disregard the experiment that University of Colorado and

University Hospital Zurich researchers found and form their own bias opinion, not even based on

the experiment present to them. It is also an old source from 2016.

Although Brazian believes that sleep deprivation doesn’t affect one’s mental health,

Harvard Health Publishing believes that mental health and sleep are closely connected. Those

who have mental disorders are 80% more likely to have sleep insomnia or other sleep related

problems, compared to the average 10% to 18% of adults who do have sleep problems with no
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mental health disorders. “Traditionally, clinicians treating patients with psychiatric disorders

have viewed insomnia and other sleep disorders as symptoms” (!!!) However, recent studies in

bother children and adults show that sleep problems may increase risk or contribute to some

psychiatric disorders. This research has clinical application, because treating a sleep disorder

helps get rid of some symptoms of some psychiatric disorders. While conducting a sleep study,

scientists have discovered that disruption in sleep affects neurotransmitters and stress hormones

during the REM cycle. This means that it impairs thinking and emotional regulation, which

causes insomnia to worsen the effects of psychiatric disorders. There are roughly seventy

different sleep disorder conditions. Depression is the most common mental disorder with

estimates of 65% to 90% of adult patients and 90% of children patients with this condition have

some type of sleeping problem. Multiple studies have been done to prove that sleep disorders

come before any mental disorder or psychiatric disorder. A study was done on roughly 1,000

adults aged 21 to 30 years in. They were all enrolled in a Michigan health maintenance

organization. “Compared to normal sleepers, those who reported a history of insomnia during an

interview in 1989 were four times as likely to develop major depression by the time of a second

interview three years later. And two longitudinal studies in young people — one involving 300

pairs of young twins, and another including 1,014 teenagers” (!!!) These researchers discovered

with these results, that sleep problems developed before their major depression did. Sleep

deprivation does effect human’s mental health. Losing sleep or experiencing a disruption in sleep

is linked to also disrupting all sorts of neurotransmitters and happy hormones in the human brain.

Sleep is such an important function to the human brain, that not getting enough of it on a

regular, healthy basis, can cause premature death. Heart attacks and strokes are America’s

leading cause of death. People with high blood pressure and diabetes are most at risk for heart
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attacks and stokes. Sleep deprivation is actually linked to these top two causes of death. If one

suffers from diabetes or high blood pressure, they “are more than twice as likely to die from

these cardiovascular events when they sleep less than six hours a night” (!!!) Getting efficient

sleep can actually prolong these patients lives. “And once people have already had a heart attack

or stroke, they’re more than 3 times as likely to die from cancer when they sleep less than six

hours a night” (!!!). On the bright side of this, humans who get less than six hours of sleep are

not at an increased risk of a premature death from cancer. Anyway,  Julio Fernandez-Mendoza,

PhD, author and a sleep psychologist at the Sleep Research & Treatment Center of the Penn

State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania suggests that their

studies shows that getting normal sleep could be very protective to some people with diabetes,

high blood pressure and other underlying conditions that may cause premature death. Getting

enough sleep will definitely help prevent one form dying prematurely, but it will also hurt them

if they don’t. “Too little sleep suppresses our immune system and places our body in a state of

heightened alertness for stressful events like a fight-or-flight mode,” explains Dr. St-Onge.

Knowing sleep causes mental health disorders, it’s not surprising that lack of it causes stress and

hurts our immune system as well. Sleep is extremely important to life; sleep deprivation can even

lead to an early death.

Sleep is an important function of human life. It effects the brain, people’s performance,

their mental health, and without it, it can lead to a premature death. It is important to get enough

sleep every week because when sleep deprived, affects similar to those of Lawrence Leung will

arise. It’s important to start getting efficient sleep now because sleep deprivation effects all ages.

It affects the development of adolescents and teens brains. It affects the mental health of children
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and adults, both sexes. Every is impacted by sleep deprivation from start to finish. Sleep

deprivation can even lead to a premature death.

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Work Cited
Rapaport, Lisa. “Lack of Sleep May Lead to Early Death, Study Finds: Everyday Health.”

Everyday Health, Heart Health, 8 Oct. 2019, www.everydayhealth.com/heart-health/lack-

sleep-may-lead-early-death-study-finds/.

Leung, Lawrence, director. What Are the Consequences Of Sleep Deprivation?Youtube, ABC

Science, 2 Mar. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_irU28cajj4.

Harvard Health Publishing. “Sleep and Mental Health.” Harvard Health, Harvard Health

Publishing, 18 Mar. 2019, www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/sleep-and-mental-

health.

Bazian. “Lack of Sleep May Disrupt Development of a Child's Brain.” NHS. 18 Feb. 2020,

www.nhs.uk/news/neurology/lack-of-sleep-may-disrupt-development-of-a-childs-brain/.

Breus, Michael. “Here's Why You Can't Think Straight When You're Sleep Deprived.” Your

Guide to Better Sleep, Sleep Doctor, 17 Apr. 2018,

thesleepdoctor.com/2018/04/17/heres-why-you-cant-think-straight-when-youre-sleep-

deprived/.
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