Josh Okyere

Period 2
Sleep
There are many elements to life that we strive to find answers for as to why they occur.
Many of these things can be death, why people act some way, and one of the most common
elements that is often questioned is sleep. Sleep may be one of the most relaxing and important
actions that a human experiences or partakes in. Sleep helps with the functionality of a human
being and how they act. Sleep also has many indirect effects such as the attitude of a person and
even how they seem to appear. When someone is very tired, it is often obvious to tell from their
facial expression or elements such as bags and a faded skin tone. Although sleep is very
important, it is often the top activity that is taken advantage of or misused in the wrong way.
Many questions such as, How much sleep do we really need? and What do dreams mean?
are frequently asked and this essay will help elaborate on these questions and many other
elements affiliated with the action of sleep.
Sleep is the overall and vital indicator of health and well being, we spend up to one-third
of our lives asleep. (National Sleep Foundation). It is continually proven to us how important
sleep is to us since we are children, but for some reason we continually disregard it. The amount
of sleep everyone gets is important, but each age group has a specific amount of sleep they
should receive to fully function and be healthy. According to The National Sleep Foundation,
new born kids (0-3 months) need 14-17 hours of sleep, infants (4-11 months) need 12-15 hours
of sleep, toddlers (1-2 years) need 11-14 hours of sleep and preschool kids (3-5 years) need 1013 hours of sleep. When it comes to school age kids, (6-13 years) they need about 9-11 hours of
sleep, teenagers (14-17 years) need about 8-10 hours of sleep, young adults (18-25 years) need

about 7-9 hours of sleep, adults (26-64 years) need about 7-9 hours of sleep and older adults
(65+ years) need about 7-8 hours of sleep. Given these statistics, it is obvious that these
important recommendations for sleep amounts are needed to help us fully function but a majority
of these times the recommendations are not followed. Many people would function better if they
would take the recommendations into consideration but also life throws many things at us.
School, work and other life situations may cause us to not be able to sleep the required amount
needed for us to feel completely satisfied.
There are many ways that we can be easily deprived of sleep but there also helpful tips to
help us. According to The National Sleep Foundation, there 10 fast or more convenient ways to
help us adjust our sleeping schedule. Some of these tips are: Stick to a sleep schedule, practice a
relaxing bedtime ritual, avoid naps, exercise daily, evaluate your room, sleep on a comfortable
mattress, use a bright light to manage your circadian rhythms, avoid drugs and heavy meals,
wind down and do something till you get tired if you dont feel tired but youre at a point where
you think you are ready to sleep. Some of these tips need to be elaborated on such as naps. Naps
are very vital especially to school students. They are able to regenerate energy in the body and
help you get through the day but they also make it hard for people to sleep at night due to the
imitation it gives of actual sleep. Exercising daily also helps with sleep because it makes you
tired a lot faster which causes you to end up relying on sleep to get better. These tips are
ultimately the most important ways to help with sleep adjustments.
As I had stated earlier in this essay, there are many ways that we deprive ourselves of
sleep and many of these ways can be through the food and or drink that we consume. One of the
most commonly consumed beverage called coffee and people drink it for the plain fact that it
keeps them awake. Yes, coffee may help keep you awake for the time being but it also has long

term effects. A double espresso three hours before bedtime delayed the production of sleep
hormone melatonin by about 40 minutes, making it harder to nod off. (Gallagher). These are
facts that many people that drink coffee are not aware of and even though coffee may help with
temporary moments, it can also be unhelpful in long term moments. In general, caffeinated
drinks mess with our body clocks and slow it down which causes us to think we are not tired,
even though we are. These are all facts that we, as consumers, need to realize and keep in to
consideration if we want to improve our sleep cycles.
Deprivation of sleep could also become or turn into something more serious such as a
sleep disorder. A sleep disorder is a disturbance in the sleeping patterns of a person and it can
come in many forms. According to the Sleep Disorders page of Wikipedia, sleep disorders are
classified dyssomnias, parasomnias and circadian rhythm sleep disorders. These sleep disorders
can come in various ways like sleep apnea, insomnia and hypersomnia. Sleep apnea is the
disorder where someone stops breathing while theyre asleep which can cause extreme panic by
that person. Insomnia is when a person has trouble falling asleep or staying asleep for the time
they desire and on the other hand, hypersomnia is when someone sleeps excessively at
inappropriate times. Just like almost all diseases or a majority of them, there are treatments that
can be given to help with the problem. Such treatments include rehabilitation centers or
programs, medications and therapy that help with these kinds of sleep disorders. At times we
take for granted how we can fall asleep at any time we want while there are other people
struggling with the element of sleep. It should always be a goal to stay consistent with our sleep
patterns and not bring any unnecessary upon ourselves.
One vivid and most expected element about sleep is the concept of dreams or the action
of dreaming. Dreams are sometimes the most pleasurable moments in a dream but on the other

hand they can be very frightening and unbearable. A common question that is asked about
dreams is simple, Why do we dream? Dreams usually occur during the phase called REM
sleep. During REM sleep, muscles are temporarily paralyzedprotecting us from physically
acting out these dreams with our bodies. Interestingly, its not just our eyes that move rapidly, but
our fingers and toes do too. (Morgan). According to Theories Abound to an Age-Old
Question: Why Do We Dream? by Dr. Morgan, dreams can happen for many reasons such as
physical, mental, emotional or spiritual reasons. Many life experiences can also cause us to
experience certain dreams and many people also have dreams that foreshadow a certain situation
that actually ends up happening. Most people also learn life lessons through dreams and end up
changing their lives for the better after having a specific dream or dreams. Dreams also serve as
symbols in many instances.
According to Huffington Post, there are 14 common dreams/symbols that are very
important and hold higher meaning. These symbols/dreams are: Being chased, water, vehicles,
people, school or classroom, paralysis, death, flying, falling, nudity, baby, food, house and sex.
These symbols or dreams each have their own unique symbolism or meaning behind it. For
example, according to the article food symbolizes energy and nourishment and knowledge as
well, babies often symbolize something new such as a new idea and the biggest misconception is
death. Death realistically is symbolized as something coming to an end or a dramatic change that
will occur in the dreamers life, it does not mean that you are actually going to die very soon.
Many of these symbols should be taken in a positive way because if we think something is
negative, that conception will continue to stay with us and we might think that it will actually
happen even if it will not.

Sleep is an element of life that should never be taken lightly. It is an action that we should
always take seriously because it helps with our functionality and well being. There are many
disorders that can occur that have an affiliation to sleep and its unfortunate that many people
have these disorders. The people that do not have these disorders should be thankful and not take
advantage of it because nothing would be more irritating then wanting to sleep but not being able
to. When it comes to dreaming, we should always look at it with a positive outlook, especially if
we see something that stands out. Chances are its a lesson in disguise.