Poor sleeping habits lead to poor performance in everyday life. This is a fact that most people do not want to admit, but scientific study and more than fifty years of animal research has shown otherwise. In an animal research study conducted on laboratory rats, wherein two groups of rats are subjected to a maze where they have ran through the night before. One group has received the right amount of sleep while the other group had deliberately disturbed sleep. The group that had the right amount of sleep consistently out performed the ones from the group that did not. It is the same case as in humans. It has been discovered that after a well-scheduled nap, that finger dexterity of an individual can increase up to 16% before the nap was taken.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Brain Activity
Sleep deprivation can cause a lot of things within the brain. And most of them are apparent even to the observer. From an observer’s point of view, people who did not get the proper amount of sleep are more irritable, have less focus and attention span, are less able to grasp new concepts and also become less creative. Within the sleep deprived person’s body, structural changes in the brain have yet to take place wherein information are yet to be consolidated and stored away to be integrated with current memory. This in turn causes the person to be forgetful, less able to focus, and easily irritable.
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Health
When the brain is affected, it is highly likely if not surely that the entire body is also affected. Sleep deprivation has been known to cause a severe drop in immune system defenses as well as lowered hand-eye coordination. Hormonal imbalance may also result from sleep deprivation. This can result in more acne growth or stunted height gain. The chain reaction from these results of sleep deprivation can branch out to more serious consequences such as car accidents, a loss of morale, and even severe anxiety and lack of social interaction.
How poor sleeping Habits are Formed
Poor sleeping habits are formed within 21 days of repetitive poor scheduling of sleep. It is imperative that the average person should get at least 7 hours worth of quality sleep in a day. Well scheduled naps are also considered to be a very good source of quality sleep, especially if they are taken when you are most sleepy. Psychology has stated that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. If a person has been fighting insomnia by watching television, staying up longer that he is supposed to be, for more than 21 days he will develop a poor sleeping habit. The best habit to develop is a rightly scheduled early night’s rest. This can be done by keeping activity to a minimum 3 hours before sleeping time.
Combat Poor Sleeping Habits
I have experienced having poor sleeping habits myself. And I found this site to hold a lot of useful information with regards to sleeping, and I even got a method to sleep less for more wake up time. With that said, poor sleeping habits should really be eliminated in order to live a fuller life.