Psychology Essay 1

What follows (below) is an essay I wrote for my psychology class. This also garnered an A. The writing style is less than stellar, and in some places seems quite abrupt. Remember that the point of this essay was not to showcase my astounding literary abilities, but to provide information.

Interesting Facts on Sleep

by Josiah Teal

While reading through the article titled, “Sleep: Strange Bedfellows” I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the many little known facts on sleep. Sleep has always been a fascination of mine, as I have noticed in myself an ability to recall information hidden deep in my memory banks while sleeping, having been unable to do so while awake. The topics in the article range from the health of your teeth, to insomnia.

According to the article, sleep is an important part of forming long term memories. The brain will often replay the day’s events during sleep, enhancing our reception of them for future reference. I find this rather interesting, because as I stated before, I will sometimes have trouble remembering something while awake. I have found that if I think about the problem intensely right before I go to sleep, I will be able to recover it in my sleep. Not only that, but the information I retrieved in my sleep will still be there when I wake up and I will most likely never forget it again. Sleep is also essential in preparing for a college exam, as it has been discovered that students who sleep less tend to do worse than students who get plenty of sleep.

Also, sleep is good for your heart. Speaking from personal experience here, I can say that when you go for long periods of time without sleep, as I did when I had to plow driveways during one winter, you start to feel aches and pains in your body. I also noticed that my heart was beating different than normal, pounding rather than beating. A lack of sleep puts you at a risk for hypertension, according to researchers at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Strangely enough, sleep may also be good for tooth health. According to the article, researchers studied 219 Japanese factory workers for four years. Those who got 7-8 hours of sleep a night reportedly had less trouble with periodontal diseases than those who slept less. This may have something to do with the body’s immune system being more active with more sleep.

Here’s a new concept; more sleep may help keep kids from becoming obese. Although there is no definitive proof of the link between sleep and obesity, some researchers have suggested that the cause may be how active children feel. A child with little sleep may not feel like playing kickball at school during recess while a kid with sufficient sleep will feel like running around and having fun. Also, kids with less sleep may have a disrupted metabolism.

And now for the inevitable insomniac piece (Fragment, consider revising). Some people, like me, have a very hard time sleeping at night and instead of being sleepy, are nearly wide awake. These people, it turns out, may have a genetic mutation that is the culprit for their irritating plague of insomnia. The gene affects what is called the circadian cycle. The circadian cycle is the “clock that keeps our metabolism, digestion, and sleep patterns in sync.” People who stay in bed longer in the morning (lazy people as some would call them) are almost always compensating for their large amounts of insomnia. Some of these “night owls” also reported feeling less in control of their sleep (like me), which may be a cause of insomnia.

Finally, there are a few people who can get by with very small amounts of sleep. Studies found that those who sleep in what is called slow-wave sleep, the deepest form of sleep, have a harder time getting along while sleep deprived, while other people seem to do just fine.

So far we have learned that sleep enhances memory, improves heart health, may strengthen teeth, and may help keep kids from becoming overweight. There are many mysteries surrounding the phenomenon of sleep. Perhaps some still to be discovered. I will watch with interest as further discoveries are made.