Speaking Activity 27

Why Do We Need Enough Sleep?

Purpose : To persuade my audience to sleep adequately everyday

Central Idea : We need to sleep adequately to maintain our health, increase

performance of memory and learning and lower risk of getting depression

Assalamualaikum and good morning Madam.

I’m Wan Nor Athirah Binti Wan Nazri from ……………

Introduction

i. Let us sit back and think are we having enough sleep nowadays, with
assignments, projects and works piling?

People often cut back on their sleep for work and for family demands.

Even one night of short sleep can affect you the next day. Not only are
you more likely to feel sleepy, you are more likely to be in a bad mood
and be less productive at work.

ii. I am very sure that most of us have the experience of sacrificing precious
sleep in order to meet with life demand
iii. No matter how demanding our life could be, getting enough sleep is a
must to ensure our body and mind work well
iv. The question is, how many hours of sleep are enough?

How much sleep you need changes as you age. The American Academy
of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend:

v. Adults should sleep 7 hours or more per night to promote optimal health
a. Sleeping less than 7 hours per night on a regular basis is associated
with adverse health outcomes, including weight gain and obesity,
diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke, depression and
increased risk death
 b. Sleeping less than 7 hours per night also associated with impaired
immune function, increase pain, impaired performance, increase
errors and greater risk of accidents

vi. After doing a comprehensive research for this topic, realization hits me
that getting enough sleep on a daily basis is very important in our life
vii. Today, I am targeting to persuade all of you to understand the importance
of getting enough sleep and of course not only understands but practicing
as well

Now, allow me to bring to you the importance of getting enough sleep

BODY

I. I believe you should know that sleep runs a deep relationship with our
health.
A. Adequate and good sleep is dream recipe to lose weight.
i. According to Cappuccio FP and friends - in Meta-analysis of short
sleep duration and obesity in children and adults, New studies
provide evidence that insufficient sleep enhances hedonic stimulus
processing in the brain underlying the drive to consume food; thus,
insufficient sleep results in increased food intake.

ii. In addition, lack of sleep has been reported to decrease plasma

leptin levels, increase plasma ghrelin and cortisol levels, alter
glucose homeostasis and activate the orexin system, all of which
affect the control of appetite and might compromise the efficacy of
dietary interventions.

B. Quality sleep builds a healthy heart.

i. Just the right amount of good-quality sleep is key to good heart
health, according to researchers at the Center for Cohort Studies at
Kangbuk Samsung Hospital and Sungkyunkwan University School
of Medicine in Seoul, South Korea.
ii. Sleep habits may put you at higher risk for early signs of heart
disease, even at a relatively young age.
 C. Adequate sleep decelerates the aging process.

i. During deep sleep, the rise in growth hormones allows damaged

cells to become repaired.
ii. Without the deeper phases of sleep, this won't occur, allowing daily
small breakdowns to accumulate instead of being reversed
overnight.
iii. This results in more noticeable signs of aging.
iv. So, getting adequate sleep will repair the cells and decelerates
aging process., getting adequate sleep will repair the cells and
decelerates aging process.

Let’s have an insight on how enough sleep posed on our memory and
learning performance

II. Do you actually know that adequate sleep also give impacts on our
memory and learning performance?

A. The quantity and quality of sleep affect a person’s ability to remember,

and sleep is a period where the brain consolidates memories.

i. Memory consolidation is the process by which newly acquired

information, initially fragile, is integrated and stabilized into long-
term memory.
ii. Evidence suggests that sleep plays a role in the consolidation of a
range of memory tasks, with the different stages of sleep
selectively benefiting the consolidation of different types of
memory.
iii. Sleep deprivation has been shown to lead to reduced attention and
short-term or working memory.
iv. This in turn influences what gets saved as long-term episodic
memories, but it also impacts the performance of higher level
cognitive functions such as decision-making and reasoning.
v. As you can see, adequate sleep is very important towards our
quality of memory and learning performance.
 B. Enough sleep is very important to enhance and maintain good
learning’s
i. Sleep deprivation makes our focus, attention, and vigilance drift,
making it more difficult to receive information.
ii. Without enough sleep and rest, over-worked neurons can no longer
function to coordinate information properly, and we lose our ability
to access previously learned information.

Jumping to the last point, this has a connection with depression

III. Enough sleep contributes in lowering the risk of getting depression.

A. Well, sleep alone cannot be the sole factor that contributes to

depression.

B. But, what will happen if you skip your precious sleep?

i. Skipping sleep will negatively affect us by impairing our brain

function across the board.
 It will slow down our ability to process information and
problem solving, kills your creativity, and catapults your
stress levels and emotional reactivity.
ii. These, in turn mock our emotion and make us depressed
throughout the day.
iii. Hence, all of us need adequate amount of sleep to lower the risk of
getting depression.

C. In some cases, sleep deprivation may lead to suicide.

According to Porras-Segovia, A. and friends, there was a significant

and independent association between sleep disturbances and suicide
risk. Psychiatric disorders, sleep deprivation-induced neurocognitive
deficits, emotional dysregulation, alterations in circadian rhythms, and
negative feelings, among other factors, contributed to this relationship.
Sleep loss may lead to higher levels of impulsivity, thus increasing
 unplanned suicidal behaviour. Sleep disturbances may therefore predict
suicidal behaviour, hence becoming a potential therapeutic target.

Conclusion

I. As you could see, it is crystal clear that insufficient sleep will impose
lots of bad impact on us.
II. Needless to say, adequate sleep is very important for us to maintain
our overall health and performance.
III. Thus, to those who had made sleeping late as his/her habit, start today
by changing your sleeping time and you’ll feel the difference!

Reference:

Watson NF, Badr MS, Belenky G, Bliwise DL,Buxton OM, Buysse D, Dinges DF,
Gangwisch J, Grandner MA, Kushida C, Malhotra RK, Martin JL, Patel SR, Quan SF, Tasali
E. Recommended amount of sleep for a healthy adult:a joint consensus statement of the
American Academy of sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society. J Clin Sleep Med
2015;11(6):591–592.

Payne, J. D., PhD. (n.d.). Learning, Memory, and Sleep in Humans. Retrieved November 23,
2016, from
http://ndsamlab.weebly.com/uploads/9/6/8/2/9682359/19payne_sleepmedclin2011-1.pdf

Gallagher, J. (2015, June 6). Sleep's memory role discovered. BBC News. Retrieved
November 22, 2016, from http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27695144

Bradberry, T. (2015, January 20). Lack of Sleep Is Killing You and Your Career. Retrieved
November 22, 2016, from http://www.inc.com/travis-bradberry/sleep-deprivation-is-killing-
you-and-yourcareer.html

By Chris Iliades, MD. (2012, September 14). Depression and Sleep: Getting the Right
Amount. Retrieved November 22, 2016, from
http://www.everydayhealth.com/hs/majordepression/depression-and-sleep-the-right-amount/

Chen, M. Y., Wang, E. K., & Jeng, Y.J. (2006, March 8). Adequate sleep among adolescents
is positively associated with health status and health-related behaviors. Retrieved November
22, 2016, from https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-6-59
Porras-Segovia, A., Perez-Rodriguez, M., López-Esteban, P., Courtet, P., MaríaLBarrigón, M., López-
Castroman, J., Cervilla, J., & Baca-García, E. (2019). Contribution of sleep deprivation to suicidal
behaviour: A systematic review. Sleep medicine reviews, 44, 37-47 .