Last week I shared a questionnaire which may or may not have had the results of being sleep deprived. This week I'm going to provide possible reasons for the situation. Explanations can range from downright obvious to being pretty obscure.
Some of the obvious explanations are that you just aren't getting enough sleep. This would incorporate going to sleep late (or not at all) as well as not being able to sleep when in bed. When I find it hard to sleep, it's due to some big problem I'm in the middle of, and the only way to get shut-eye is to ponder of solutions to the problem before I do so.
Another explanation for sleep deprivation is how much sunlight you're getting. Prior to my Psychology class, I had no idea that sleep and sunlight had a correlation, so this was an interesting discovery.
When you are out in the sunlight, your body secretes melatonin which causes your body to become drowsy and tired. You need the right amount of sunlight in order to get this melatonin-secretion. For areas that get little sunlight, there is also an increase in the percentage of sleep deprived people.
And for those who do go out in the sunlight and put on sunblock, you might be putting it on the wrong way and inhibiting melatonin production. Most people will say to put on sunblock a couple of minutes before you go outdoors. The problem with this procedure is that when you're outside, the brain will send a signal telling the skin that it's getting sunlight and to secrete melatonin. However, the sunblock prevents the skin from being able to sense that it's outside, so no signal is sent.
For this reason, it's better to wait outside for a couple of minutes before you put on the sunblock. This way, the body will know that it is getting sunlight before you inhibit it's response. An approximate wait time before putting on sunblock is around 10-20 minutes for pale-skinned people and 20-40 minutes for darker-skinned people.
And another explanation for deprivation is people neglecting their needed sleep. You might feel that you can get two hours less from the expected 9 hours a night and be fine. Something that isn't common knowledge is that our body's work on a 25-hour schedule which ends up contradicting our 24-hour clock. This contradiction occurred when the Roman Catholic Church announced that a day will be 24 hours long.
This means that regardless of when you decide to sleep, you have already missed one hour of your precious sleep, and by sleeping even less in the week, you're just adding onto the hours of missed sleep.
Sleep deprivation is becoming a very common issue in both the adolescent and grown population. This is because sleep is being neglected for "more important" tasks. By neglecting your sleep, you're increasing your chances of becoming irritable, tired, and less efficient in whatever activity you're participating in.
You can safely assume sleep is an important feature of life when you think about proven cases with various animals have shown us that a complete lack of sleep automatically leads to death. While there is still research occurring on WHY we need sleep, it's already been a given to partake in the need.
Author's Note: Source: My great AP Psychology teacher
