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Rebekah Honaker
English Comp 2
Due on March 20th, 2022

“How not sleeping negatively impacts your stress and your life”

Why, when I sleep less, am I more stressed? How can I better manage my health with my

sleep? All questions I had I wanted to answer for myself, mainly how sleep affects my stress. I

found so much information to go through. Most of it was clickbait, " 10 ways to improve sleep

with these cool tools" articles. I wanted the facts and the science behind why I felt worse and got

sick more when I didn't sleep. Finally, I found some constructive ways to improve my help and

increase brain function.

If you have ever taken an intro to psychology class, you most likely went over sleep and

how it affects the brain. As a student, you can be inclined to pull "all-nighters" to learn more the

night before a big test. This study, however, found that your learning and retention was

decreased by 40% when students lacked sleep.( the TED talk shows this in more detail) This, if

nothing else, shows how sleep can affect even small things. In this TED talk that references the

study, they bring to light how vital sleep is to protect your mental and physical health. For

example, they talk about how people who sleep only 5 hours a night are at an increased risk of

breast cancer. So much so that the CDC lists night shifts and things that limit your sleep as "

cancer-causing." so now that we know sleep is essential, how can we reduce our stress?

Sleep is when the brain repairs itself and lets your mind and body rest. If your body

doesn't enter REM, it's hard for your brain to fully be ready for the next day, causing internal
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stress and external stress. The first thing I do when I don't sleep well is poor a cup of coffee.

While this might be a quick fix, it's part of the problem. When you consume caffeine, a

stimulant, your brain runs on that—throwing off your natural sleep patterns—only making your

situation worse. Alcohol also messes up your sleep patterns, but it does the opposite of coffee

because it is a depressant.

So we have established what is not helpful for sleep, but what about the things that can

help? Your sleep pattern is essential to develop if you look to improve your sleep and health.

Your body runs on cycles like hormones, and keeping your body in check with your sleep cycles

will help you fall asleep and get better quality of sleep.( talked about in the article about quality

of sleep and stress) Improving the quality of your sleep will benefit your health by reducing the

risk of heart attack and cancer. Adding one hour of sleep to the routine of someone who sleeps 6

hours a night will improve their mood, libido, and memory. Needless to say, sleeping can

significantly benefit all those who make it a priority and keep it regular.

Now in the world, we live in, sleep is a luxury. If time is money, why would your waste it

sleeping away your time? As we progress as a society, money is the driving force, stress is

higher, and sleep is becoming less and less. In the last 100 years, we have lost the regular 11

hours of sleep to just 8. this is becoming a big problem; we are less healthy. Driving your life

around money forces your life to be more stressful and less restful. this can only impact your

sleep negatively. But you can't cut out everything that stresses you out of keeps you awake that

unrealistic.
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Keeping your life in check is a challenging task to maintain. But simply taking an hour

before bed to turn down the lights, read a book, and not be on your phone can be good for your

body, mind, well-being, and sleep. Deep breaths in the morning and before bed can be a great

practice to help you keep a routine and help your body know when to rest and sleep. In addition,

simple things like meditation and staying away from caffeine will help your body self-regulate

its sleep pattern and keep you healthier and at a lower risk for getting sick and developing some

types of cancer.

And for those who say that you can " sleep when you are dead," I don't think they

understand the implications of making that statement come true. The more you sleep, the longer

your life will be and the happier it will be. The less sleep, the more risk you are at for being

unhealthy and unhappy with your body and brain taking the hit, not your paycheck. So the next

time you are tempted to stay out late, cut out some extra sleep before work to get something

done. Take a second to think about if its worth some of the long-term damage it will do to your

body. Start treating sleep like a critical factor in your health and not the first thing to get cut out

if there's " not enough time." Make time. Your body, stress levels, and mood will thank you.
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Works Cited

Özsoy, Hilal Ekşi, et al. “The Relationship Between Stress Levels, Sleep Quality, and Oral Health-

Related Quality of Life in Turkish University Students with Self-Reported Bruxism.” Journal of

Turkish Sleep Medicine, vol. 9, no. 1, Mar. 2022, pp. 64–72. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.4274/jtsm.galenos.2021.32559. Lindell, Maja, and Anna Grimby-Ekman.

“Stress, Non-Restorative Sleep, and Physical Inactivity as Risk Factors for Chronic Pain in

Young Adults: A Cohort Study.”

PLoS ONE, vol. 17, no. 1, Jan. 2022

https://eds.p.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=2ff26c04-33ed-404a-b5f5-

6de8c4c898a5%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#AN=154792286&db=fsr

Accessed on March 6, 2022

Fry, Alexa. Dimitriu, Alex. “Stress and Insomnia”

Sleep foundation, June 24, 2021.

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/insomnia/stress-and-insomnia

Accessed on March 6, 2022

Huberman, Andrew. “The Science of Stress, Calm and Sleep with Andrew Huberman”

Posted by Stanford Alumni on youtube.com on March 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft9N2-CEPzc

Accessed on March 6, 2022

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Walker, Matt. “Sleep is your superpower”

TED2019. Ted.com

Published April 2019 https://www.ted.com/talks/matt_walker_sleep_is_your_superpower?language=en

Accessed on march 6th 2022.