Pulling an all-nighter has become the norm for humans, but are we setting off permanent brain damage consequently ?

in #stemng6 years ago

(This is the conversation between a lovely wedded couple)

Wife: Honey, it's already 11pm and you haven't slept yet

Husband: Yeah, I still have a lot to work on

Wife: I'm not comfortable with that, You've not been getting enough sleep for the past few weeks now.

Husband: I know hun, but I just have a lot to do, I promise I will make up for the sleep later.



[Image credit - Pixabay]
Depriving ones self of sleep and making up for it later has been a common sleep strategy for humans, especially adults who don't want to be a slacker. Over the years, clear cut facts have proved very much obviously that this strategy of "making up for a sleep deficit at a later time" recorded limited rate of success.

Getting less sleep, however, is not only as a result of having a busy schedule. It can also be caused by common sleep problems or disorders which includes: Insomnia ( i.e. Finding it hard to fall asleep and stay asleep), sleep apnea (a sleeping disorder which stop you from sleeping, from time to time due to temporary stoppage of breathing during sleep) and others.

In 2016, a report was revealed on the sleep deficit rate of the citizens or inhabitants of Britain collectively. The report showed that not more than 20 percent of the brits are getting enough sleep, and that teachers and doctors are the ones with most chronic poor sleep from the remaining 80 percent suffering from sleep deprivation.

Increased sleep deprivation has caused a negative health effects which in turn leads to low productivity. This issue of chronic poor sleep has caused a reduction in the UK economy by £40 billion in 12 months.

The latest report from the sleep Council showed that not more than 12 percent of the Brits sleep for less than five hours a night, and the figure that sleep for less than seven hours was estimated as 74 percent.


Let's discuss the possible risk of sleep deprivation on human brain damage ?



[Image credit - Pixabay]
The problem of permanent damages to the brain of human due to chronic poor sleep was suggested by Scientists at the China’s Peking University and University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine. This was after they discovered in mice, that the brain cell function of the mice became less effective and that the brain cells start to die when they made the mice to go through different amount of sleep loss and then study the active rate of the neurons in the mice.


The mice that was used in the case study above was made to go through regular sleep routine similar to the sleep routine of a human that works as a shift worker. Due to the significance of the neurological function of the locus coeruleus neurons (LC neurons) in mice, locus coeruleus is the part of the brain that was given much attention as the neurologic part of the mice was examined after each sleep period.

After the test was conducted, however, the scientists observed that when the mice were deprived of sleep for a short period of term, the LC neurons in mice were able to withstand and effectively deal with the challenges posed by the chronic sleep deprivation.


Highlights of recent research on the possibility of the claim



[Image credit - Pixabay]
The researchers from Sweden discovered the effects of totally depriving fifteen healthy men in their youthful stage of life of a single night of sleep on their brain. The Swedish researchers discovered a 20 percent rise or increment in the concentration of the blood present in the brain cells of the young men to levels that the neurons in their brain cannot but experience certain damages.


There is a newly acquired knowledge of the connection between the amount of insufficient sleep and volume of brain tissue which was brought into emergence through the research conducted a short while ago on the former member of the military armed forces who served during the Gulf wartime irrespective of their condition of being exposed to other brain injury. The researchers discovered that a large part of the brain tissue including the frontal lobe of the brain grew worse.

The occurrence of neurodegenerative diseases ( i.e the gradual loss of nerve cells or neurologic functions) such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease are likely to expedite when the LC part of the brain is not intact.


Do we need to sleep for 2 hours or 10 hours or for even more to be healthy ?



[Image credit - Pixabay]
We might not need more than two hours of sleep to make do with, but that doesn't mean we can function optimally just with that two hours of sleep. Therefore, the amount of sleep needed to make do with is quite different from that required to be energetically active.
The findings of the National Institute of health on the amount of sleep an average adult get, is In concurrence with the sleep Council report that recorded a sleep of less than seven hours per night.


Getting a sleep of six hours to seven hours per night, might be enough to be the best formula to deal with the problem of sleep deprivation in this fast rising part of the world. perhaps, I can assume the higher the amount of sleep you get per night, the much better you feel and the higher your level of performance.

The amount of sleep required from one person to another is not constant. All the same, A sleep duration of 7 to 9 hours is enough for most healthy adults to function with the highest level of performance.

While the average sleep need for persons from newborn to 17 years of age must not be less than 8 hours, it must be between 7 and 8 hours in older adults. Average sleep need decreases with increase in age.

Moreover, the function of the LC neurons became reduced and the brain cells eventually die away when the mice were deprived of sleep for a long-term period.


Personal Experience

I was going to share this just so you would be more enlightened about the negative effects of not getting enough sleep. This is an experience which I had when I was writing my WASSCE exam in the year 2011.

On this unfaithful day, I was going to write a chemistry exam paper at exactly 1pm which I am not too good at, so I decided that I would deprive myself of total sleep so that I could read all through the night. Luckily, I was able to do that throughout that night and even upto 12 pm. At exactly 12pm, I decided to take a nap for 30 minutes before I start going to the examination venue.

Then I woke up looking very sad and gloomy. I was furious at myself and started blaming myself that I have missed the exam paper for that day. It felt as if I had slept for hours, but to my surprise it was just a few minutes nap when I checked the clock. I thought I was the fortunate one, I was very happy that I was going to deal with the questions.

My brother, to cut the long story short, it was another thing entirely when I checked through the questions and realized it was the question that was actually dealing with me mercilessly. The truth is that I couldn't even remember the definition what "an atom" was.

What is an atom? Maybe you guys should remind me what it is.... Lol




Conclusion

The damage of brain due to chronic sleep deprivation might have been confirmed to only affect simple animals such as mice, but this has brought about the suggestion that the same thing might happen in humans. It's now the work of the researchers to explore on this claim and find out the average amount of sleep needed per night in humans to prevent the occurrence of irreversible brain injury.

The good news about all this is that the LC part of the brain can be shielded from the risk of chronic sleep deprivation by a protein called sirtuin type 3, which was discovered during the mice test. The production of this protein has proved to be a solution for future effects of sleep loss on brain damage.

Let us try to get enough sleep as a preventive measure against the risk of irreversible brain damage because prevention is better than cure.




Reference




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If pulling all-nighters causes brain damage then I am in big trouble. Fortunately my school days are far behind me and hopefully the damage has been repaired by now.

I think most people are guilty of this claim including my very self

Thanks for stopping by

I owe sleep a lot then :)

Hahaha..lol

Thanks for the comment sir



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