Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the review of literature and studies which are

relevant to this present study.

Sleep and the Brain

Americans now average about seven hours in bed per night, and close to

60%now report that they have trouble sleeping at least a few nights every week

(Marano,2003). "Scientists estimate [in an article by Becky Munson, called

"About Sleep Deprivation" ]that most adults should sleep one to two more hours

more per night due to the fact that 80% of Americans are chronically sleep-

deprived" (Munson, 2000). Recent studies show that during sleep the brain takes

all new information obtained during the day and organizes it. Students who are

sleep-deprived can therefore lose up to 30% of what they studied up to two days

earlier (Munson, 2000).

What purpose does sleep really serve? In "Sleep Deprivation and Cognitive

Function," by Paul Tam in 1998, we learn that sleep loss affects recovery of the

frontal cortex of the brain. A lack of sleep has been shown to impair speech,

memory and innovative, and flexible thinking (Tam, 1998). In this article, two

professors, Jim Home and Dr. Yvonne Harrison, conducted studies to see how
sleep affects language, decision making, memory and also how age becomes a

factor. They found that sleep-deprived individuals had "difficulty finding the right

words and delivering them," when asked off the top of their heads to say words

beginning with a given letter, affecting communication skills in every day life.

Home and Harrison developed a computer game to test participants' ability to

think innovatively and the flexibility of their decision making process. They found

that sleep deprived individuals demonstrated a more rigid thinking and an

inability to change their strategies and show flexible decision making skills.

Overall, the previous studies in the article written by Paul Tam in 1998 and

another article by the Society for Neuroscience in 2003 shows that sleep

deprived individuals have deterioration in frontal cortex functioning, a profound

impact on memory, the ability to perform simple daily tasks, and attention span.

In July 2003, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

published a vital article; "Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep." People should

realize sleep is "as essential for your well-being as food and water" ("Brain

Basics," 2003). However, the amount of sleep each person needs depends on

many factors. For most adults about 8 to 9 hours of sleep seems to be best if

based on age. On the other hand, other life factors also affect this figure. Getting

too little sleep, impairs our judgment, reaction time, and other daily functions

("Brain Basics," 2003), even though we may become used to a sleep-depriving

schedule.
REM sleep (rapid eye movement) has been shown to have marked effects on the

brain. REM sleep begins with signals from the pons which then travel to the

thalamus, which then relays them to the cerebral cortex; "the outer layer of the

brain that is responsible for learning, thinking, and organizing information" ("Brain

Basics," 2003). One study found that this stage of sleep affects learning of

certain skills. It was found that people who were taught a skill and then deprived

of non-REM sleep could recall what they had learned after sleeping, while people

who were deprived of REM sleep could not ("Brain Basics," 2003). Therefore, an

important purpose of REM sleep is to promote the consolidation of memory, to

reinforce what we learn during the day and integrate it into long-term memory

(Marano, 2003).

Causes of Sleep Deprivation

Just like other problems that humanity faces, there is not a single

cause for sleep deprivation. If a person’s suffers from a sleep disorders, it

is very likely that the individual will become sleep deprived, the issue is

determining which disorders the person suffers from, so that health can be

sought after to assist in receiving enough sleep. People have been known

to suffer from insomnia, sleep terror disorder, narcolepsy, sleep walking

and sleep apnea; this are just a few of the many disorders that individuals

can suffer from, which can prevent them from achieving an optimum sleep

regimen each night as witnessed by researchers Murphy and Delanty

(Murphy, & Delanty, 2007).

 A long with officially diagnosable sleep disorders, it has been

observed through empirical studies such as Hershner and Chervin’s

Causes and Consequences of Sleepiness among Senior High Students that

schedules set by Colleges and Public Schools are partially responsible for

students being afflicted with sleep deprivation.

The major factor that can lead to an insufficient amount of sleep is when

an individual makes personal and professional commitments beyond that of what

is reasonable accomplished. Different careers can lead individual to go extended

periods of time without adequate amounts of sleep each night, for example;

medical professionals and shift workers. When said individuals do finally have

the opportunity to go home and rest, they still have to deal with the demands of

their socio-economic factors such as rating a family and environmental noise

pollution (Murphy, & Delanty, 2007).

By failing the obtain an efficient amount of sleep each night there is an

increase possibility of being one or more adverse effects on the individuals

cognitive capability. The actual ability to store information is not completely

hindered when a person is suffering from total sleep deprivation; however, when

a person is suffering from a lack of sleep, they may tend to lose the ability to filter

information; therefore, storing more irrelevant information into their working

memory, living less room for that which is relevant, making it appear that the

memory itself is being hindered. This was clearly observe through the empirical

research study title: the effects of two types of sleep deprivation on visual

working memory capacity and filtering efficiency, which was conducted by

researchers Drummond, Anderson, Straus, Vogel, & Perez (Drummond,

Anderson, Straus, Vogel, & Perez, 2012).

Sleep loss has been shown to be inversely proportional to academic

performance; when one fails to receive an adequate amount of sleep on a nightly

basis, the literature states that an individual’s skills in learning capacity, such as

memory, attention and problem solving skills are effected the most. Sleep

deprivation can also lead to daytime sleepiness. When this factors are all being

faced, students are likely achieve lower test scores and lower grade point

averages; however, it has been shown that cognitive function is not hindered as

drastically when the individuals are working in groups as when working alone

(Chiang, Arendt, Zheng, & Hanisch, 2014)

There are multiple ways in which individual can work to overcome their

sleep deprivation and return to functioning at an appropriate efficiency. A full

night of sleep is not always an option with people’s nonstop lives, so the majority

of people turn to different stimulants in order to keep them going during the day.

Studies have shown that when 20mg of d-amphetamines are ingested orally, the

individual returns to cognitive state that was present prior to being sleep

deprived, allowing for an improvement in addition and subtraction as well as

logical reasoning task. Amphetamines also reduce a person’s response bias by

increasing their confidents in their actions and decisions. It has long been

believed that nicotine has the ability to aid in the retention and enhancement of

cognitive functions, when the individual is sleep deprived, due to the fact that is

stimulant, but research has actually shown it has no positive effect on the brains
cognitive capabilities, due to its inability to improve sleep latency. L-deprenyl, like

nicotine, fails to improve sleep latency in sleep deprived individuals thereby

negating any improvements on cognitive performance during the sleep

deprivation period. This findings were discovered in the empirical research of

Stimulant Drug Effects on Performance and Behavior After Prolonged Sleep

Deprivation (Newhouse, Penetar, Fertig, Thorne, Sing, Thomas, & Belenky,

1992).

Sleep is a vital necessity for people to live a healthy lifestyle in which they

can function well and think properly. It helps with memory consolidation, learning,

decision making, and critical thinking (Gilbert & Weaver, 2010). Therefore, sleep

deprivation is necessary for keeping these cognitive functions at an optimal level

for performance wherever the person may be, whether it be at work, home or

even school. Unfortunately, not everyone receives adequate amount of sleep in

order to function properly throughout the day. These poor performances as a

result of poor sleep quality and sleep deprivation is especially evident among

college students. Since college students have such busy work, school, and social

schedules to keep up with their sleep cycles become negatively affected by it.

They tend to have irregular sleep cycles depending on the day of the week and

report this satisfaction with sleep as a result of poor sleep quality (Gilbert &

Weaver, 2010).

There are many causes as to why sleep deprivation occurs in college

students. In a study done by Ahrberg and his colleagues (2012), they found that

different modes of stress affect the circadian sleep rhythms of the students. Of
these modes of stress, stress from work and school are the most prevalent. A

working students can feel stress from going to school, then working too hard at

their job, and then coming to come home to do more school work until the early

hours of the day. Students who do not have a job may also feel the same

stresses as working students if they spend too much time procrastinating and

have to spend time working on school work until the early morning as well

Ahrberg and his colleagues (2012) also state that as a result of sleeping this late,

sleep deprivation acts as another stressor on the student.

More causes of sleep deprivation as stated by Tsai and Li (2004), are

gender and grade differences. In Tsai and Li study, they found that female

students tend to receive lesser sleep with poorer sleep quality and more

awakenings in the middle of the night compared to male students. The male

students would receive more sleep with better quality. This is because women

went to bed later but rose earlier. According to Tsai and Li (2004), younger

students such as college freshmen also tended to sleep less than college seniors

no matter what their gender. This maybe because of fewer workloads and the

more relaxed attitude of college seniors since they have their life more balanced

out as opposed to the incoming freshmen that are just trying to figure things out.

The college freshmen may feel more stress as they try to balance having a social

life and keeping out with their academics at the same time. As a result, sleep

deprivation can be caused by both gender differences and grade differences.

Many studies in the past have shown that sleep deprivation thus correlate

with poor academic performance because of lower abilities in cognition as a

result of poor sleep quality. In the study done by Gilbert & Weaver (2010), the

two researchers found that sleep loss interferes with a student’s academic,

extracurricular and vocational choices. They also found that the amount of hours

students sleep in a 24 hours period has greatly decreased over the years while

sleep dissatisfaction has increased.

Another study done by Medeiros and three other colleagues (2001), found

a correlation between poor academic performances and sleep deprivation but in

this study, they analyzed how irregular sleep cycles can be the result of different

days of the week. For example, their participants tended to have prolonged sleep

during the weekends because of their loss of sleep during the week days

because of school (Medeiros et al., 2001). Since humans have the tendency to

continue sleeping late as the result of their human circadian rhythm and make

people moody and cause them to not be as alert as they should be.

In a similar study done by Kelly, W. and two other colleagues (2001), they

also found that sleep deprivation greatly affects a student’s ability to perform in

their classes. This is evident through the students GPA’s. Kelly and colleagues

reported that people who slept 9 hours or more in a 24 hour period had

significantly higher GPA’s than short sleepers who sleep 6 hours or less in a 24

hour period. These short sleepers also tended to show signs of anxiousness,

were less creative, more neurotic, and more prone to hallucinate as well (Kelly,

Kelly, & Clanton, 2001).

 The focus of this study is to inform students and possibly individuals in

the work force of the awareness on the effects of sleep deprivation among Grade

12 Senior High School of Immaculada Conception College.