Human Sleep

Human Sleep

Modern life is full of busy things we do, but we all can agree that sleep is one of our

favorite things to do. Almost every person would love to spend a whole day in bed. But

in our time people choose staying up late and wake up early. There are just too many

things to do, appointments, deadlines, and the rest of the world does not go off of our

own schedule. Therefore, the majority of the population of the United States is sleep

deprived. Although the research on human sleep is very complex, experts do seem to

agree on a few basic facts and concerns These include, the feeling of being tired and

needing sleep is a basic drive of nature, like hunger, several sleep disorders are

characterized by very severe and impairing daytime sleepiness, older children never feel

sleepy during the day, and "sleep debt" is defined as a loss of sleep and is like debt

because you have to pay/sleep if back eventually to get back to normal cycle" (Dement

and Vaughan, 334). When it comes to individual sources, William C. Dement and

Christopher Vaughan were primarily concerned with peoples ignorance and unknown

information on Sleep Debt, Alcohol & Sleep Debt, and lastly Driving under the influence

of Sleep Debt. Ultimately, in my view, the most important and most interesting insights

to emerge are

In the article, "Sleep Debt and the Mortgaged Mind," William C. Dement and

Christopher Vaughan describe how ignorance of sleep deprivation has led to major

accidents and mishaps around the world. Dement and Vaughan call sleep deprivation

"sleep debt." they also use the metaphor "mortgaged mind" to help convey the central

message that sleep debt is like debt. According to their experiments, accumulated lost

sleep is like a mortgage, it must be paid back, and there is always a lender. They also

refer to sleep debt as "natures loan shark", just as loan shark could hurt us to get his

money back, sleep deprivation could affect our health if the debt is not paid back on time.

(Dement and Vaughan, 331).

The two authors begin by describing the Exxon Valdez incident and the

Challenger space shuttle accident. Both prime examples of our ignorance of sleep

deprivation. Even to this day, many people still believe that the reason the tanker was

beached is because of alcohol consumption by the captain, when in fact, the cause of the

crude oil spill was from the captain being extremely sleep deprived. Sleep deprivation

also played a crucial role in the Challenger