Lack of Sleep Disturbs Your Concentration and Makes You Less Emotionally Stable. Most Common Form of Lack of Sleep is Agitation

Recently, I’ve joined my school’s debate team and we have been training all till the wee hours of the night (or up till the security guard kicks us out of the classroom) I usually get home at around 5 before I did, giving me ample time to accomplish my reports and articles and prepare for the next day of class. But since the training regimen had been inserted, I usually go home at around 9 or 10 with an 8:30 class the following day. So where does that leave me? I have to not only accomplish all my duties for the night, but also cram in sleep somewhere in my schedule.

Sleep is important, yes. For every minute I miss I know my body is affected. It craves for it in the little breaks in between lectures, during I eat, and even when I adjudicate and train. I can’t deny the fact that I know it harms my body. But how does it, specifically?

A negative side to sleep deprivation is that it actually lessens your thinking capacity. It impairs attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving. A 2000 study, by the UCSD School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in San Diego indicated that the brain of the average sleep-deprived subject had to work harder than that of the average non-sleep-deprived subject to accomplish a given task, and from this indication they inferred the conclusion the brains of sleep-deprived subjects were attempting to compensate for adverse effects caused by sleep deprivation.

It can also make your forgetful. In 2009, American and French researchers determined that brain events are responsible for consolidating memory. The ripples also transfer learned information from the hippocampus to the neocortext of the brain, where long-term memories are stored. And these sharp wave ripples occur mostly during the deepest levels of sleep. Missed a few hours? You would probably have either stopped your brain from doing this of you would have cut the process short.

Sleep loss impairs judgment, especially about sleep. Personally speaking, the more hours I lose on sleep, the more I think that I don’t really need it. I view sleep as more of a waste of time, so maybe the more I don’t feel sleepy (even though my body shows signs of it missing serious amounts of rest), the more I neglect it.

Apparently, I’m not alone at this one. Lack of sleep can affect our interpretation skills because we may not assess situations accurately and act on them wisely. Studies have shown that over time, people say they have adapted despite the lesser amount of sleep they get only to find out that their mental alertness and performance continues to go downhill.

But the lack of sleep does not only affect us in the logical sense. It also affects us emotionally. Over time, the lack of sleep can contribute to the symptom of depression. In 2005, there was a poll that was conducted and it was found out that people who were diagnosed with depression or anxiety were more likely to sleep less than six hours at night.

Insomnia, the most common sleep disorder, has the strongest link to depression. They feed on one another. Sleep loss often aggravates the symptoms of depression, and depression can make it more difficult to fall asleep.

Sleep appears to restore our emotional brain circuits, and in doing so, it prepares us for the next day’s challenges and social interactions. So, missing a few hours of sleep may cause a strain in the emotion-centered parts of our brain.

I think I have to find a decent compromise in order for me to balance my new schedule and take care of my body at the same time. I mean, being in a debate team, you have to always be of sound mind and body.

What about you guys? How are you when you lack sleep? What are some ways in which we can better our sleep schedules? How do you cope when you’ve had a few hours short of sleep? I’d love to hear from you!