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Sources- Cooper, Belle Beth. “The Science Behind What Naps Do For Your Brain–And Why You Should Have One Today.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 2 July 2017, www.fastcompany.com/3017356/the-revealing-science-behind-what-naps-do-to-your-brain-and-why-you-should-have-o.

May, Andrew. “Why You Need a Nana Nap.” The Age, The Age, 8 July 2013, www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/why-you-need-a-nana-nap-20130705-2pgd1.html.

“What Is Sleep?” What Is Sleep? | Healthy Sleep, healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/science/what.

“Stages of Sleep - Non-REM and REM Sleep Cycles.” Tuck Sleep, www.tuck.com/stages/.

“How Long Can You Go Without Sleep? Function, Hallucination, More.” Healthline, Healthline Media, www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sleep/how-long-can-you-go-without-sleep#what-happens-after-48-hours.

Schantz-Feld, Mali Rebecca., and D. J. Triggle. Sleep Drugs. Chelsea House, 2011.

Currie-McGhee, L. K. What Are Sleep Disorders? ReferencePoint Press, 2016.

Photos: dailymail.com as seen under sleep for different people

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This topic relates to me because I have been told by several people that I sleep too much. I also take a lot of naps and think that they are beneficial to me, even though many people think otherwise. I wanted to learn about if there even was such a thing as too much sleep and of naps actually helped.

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We may have supporting evidence from scientists saying that not getting enough sleep is bad, but what about too much sleep? Is too much even a real thing? In fact, it is. For 18-64 year olds 7-9 hours is the normal amount but if you do get more sleep than this on a usual basis, these habits have been linked with cognitive impairment, depression, increased pain and inflammation, impaired fertility and brain functioning, and higher risks of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and all cause mortality. As a teenager who is very active, I take a lot of naps and was curious to know if they were benefiting me as much as I thought. In fact, according to fastcompany.com, “Studies of napping have shown improvement in cognitive function, creative thinking, and memory performance.” Not only this, but naps can also have physical benefits. In one study of 23,681 Greek men over six years, the participants who napped three times a week had a 37% lower risk of dying from heart disease. Crazy huh? However, hearing these positive effects of taking naps and sleeping, people have started to use sleeping drugs to get these positive results. But sometimes, people tend to go overboard and abuse these drugs. For example, one of the most popular medications is opium which is used to help treat insomnia and known as “the joy plant” for its calming effects. Many people; however, are taking this drug without being prescribed to it. Add or ding to data from the National Center on Addiction and Substance abuse at Columbia University, a 2004 survey of physicians found they 43% did not ask about prescription drug abuse when taking a patient's history and 1/3 did not regularly call or obtain records from the patient's previous physicians before prescribing potentiality addictive drugs. This just shows that we need to put more restraints on these drugs because they are addictive if taken in the wrong dose by people whose bodies do not need or are not used to the drug.

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Even though I do not have a hard time falling asleep, a lot of members of my close family do. For example my mom has a hard time falling back asleep after she wakes up which made me want to research ways to not only help her sleep but to figure out what was wrong.

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Well sleep is very important for people all around the world, a large percentage of the population doesn’t get enough of it. The rising question from this is: Can humans run or function on no sleep? First off, studies have shown that 24 hours of wakefulness can be compared to a .1 blood alcohol level which is above the legal driving limit. 24 hours with no sleep makes one drowsy, irritable, and impaired decision making and judgement. A person's sleeping cycle helps regulate the release of certain hormones and without enough sleep, several bodily functions will be negatively affected. Going for several days without sleeping can cause one to have hallucinations, anxiety, paranoia, and in extreme cases of no sleep, sometimes even death. While is it so important to get sleep, many people around the world have sleeping disorders which prevent them from doing this. One common example of a sleeping disorder is insomnia which according to “What Are Sleep Disorders” by Leanne Currie-McGhee is a disorder where a person cannot fall asleep or falls asleep but then wakes up and cannot go back to sleep. Another sleep disorder that people may not know as much about it Narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder that causes people to experience daytime sleepiness and intermittent, uncontrollable episodes of sleep during the day. People with narcolepsy sometimes have cases so extreme that they have to be homeschooled because they pass out so frequently during the day, especially in class. Lastly, while you can’t prevent yourself from having a sleeping disorder some tips to help you fall asleep easier and faster are: keeping your bedroom dark, quiet, and cool; using relaxation techniques before bed (such as a hot bath); avoiding caffeine and nicotine; not eating large meals before bed; and going to bed and waking up at the same time each day.

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I am a very active person and work out whenever in can in my free time. Because I am so active, I tend to sleep more than most people so I was curious if the extra sleep I am getting is actually necessary.

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Everyone on this earth is built differently, which in turn means that everyone has a diverse amount of time they should get sleeping each night. For example, people of different age groups especially have a wide varying rage of how much sleep they should get. For example:

Newborns (0-3 months): 14-17 hours each day

Infants (4-11 months): 12-15 hours

Toddlers (1-2 years): 11-14 hours

Preschoolers (3-5): 10-13 hours

School age children (6-13): 9-11 hours

Teenagers (14-17): 8-10 hours

Younger adults (18-25): 7-9 hours

Adults (26-64): 7-9 hours

Older adults (65+): 7-8 hours

Next, another determining factor for how much sleep one needs is their gender. While it may sound far fetched, Dr. Jim Horne, Britain's leading expert in sleep science claims the women need about 20 more minutes of sleep each day than men the same age as them. Dr. Horne determined that this could be affected by things like being woken up by their larger partner during the night, worrying about problems too much, or disturbances during pregnancy. Lastly, how active you are during the day also plays a role in how much sleep one should get. Active people require more sleep than those who are inactive because their body needs more recovery time which helps prevent injuries by lowering the rate of perceived exhaustion. In fact, it is proven that people who exercise more have an easier time falling and staying asleep. According to a 2013 NSF Survey, people who exercise more vigorously on a regular basis have less sleeping concerns than those who did little to no exercise.

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Sleeping applies to my life because just like every other human, I do it too. I do; however, sleep more than the average person and take a lot of naps, and I wanted to know about what sleep really is and why we need it.

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Every night we lay in bed, close our eyes, and wake up in the morning feeling refreshed. What is that activity? Well it’s called sleep. It’s a period of reduced activity that many associate with the typical position of laying down with eyes closed. Overall, sleep results on a decreased responsiveness to external stimuli, which allows our brain to decompress information while also resting the body and flushing out toxins. While sleeping may take up a third of our lives, the whole idea of it still stumps many scientists. Neuroscientist at NYU Dr. Michael Halassa quotes, “it’s sort of embarrassing...It’s obvious why we need to eat, for example, and reproduce... but it’s not clear why we need to sleep at all.” [5 Surprising Sleep Discoveries]. So, why do we sleep? While we may not know the answer just yet there are several experiments being run to determine this everpressing question. For example, professor Allan Rechtschaffen from U of Chicago did a sleep deprivation study on rats and all of these test subjects died within 2-3 weeks which helped him to prove that sleep is key to the brain’s ability to recognize itself, also known as plasticity. While sleep deprivation is the most common way to study sleep, Mark Frank, a neuroscientist at the University of Washington, says that depriving an animal of sleep disrupts many of its biological systems, making it hard to tell which outcomes are correlated to sleep deprivation rather than stress. Sleep has many different cycles and stages that a person goes through throughout the night. The first stage is NREM (No rapid eye movement) and can be identified with hypnic jerks and muscle spasms along with the person being easily awaken and slow eye movements. The second stage is the first actual stage of defined NREM sleep. A person does wake up as easily as in Stage 1 sleep and the slow moving eye rolls discontinue. Brain waves continue to slow while body temperature begins to decrease and heart rate begins to slow. Stage 3 is identified as deep NREM sleep. This is most restorative stage of sleep and awakenings are rare and often difficult. Parasomnias (sleepwalking, sleep talking or somniloquy and night terrors) occur during this deepest stage of sleep.The last stage, REM sleep, is known as the dreaming stage.  Eye movements are rapid and brain waves are more active than in Stages 2 & 3 of sleep. Awakenings can occur more easily in REM but being woken during a REM period can leave one feeling groggy or overly sleepy.