Sleep deprivation harms health
One third of human’s life is spent in sleep. Is it necessary to sleep this much? Shorter sleep time is rather exceptional. Is it possible to shorten sleep periods?
Those who need more time to work and sleeping more, mostly try to reduce their sleep periods. However, it is not possible to do it beyond a certain limit. Experiments show that too short period of sleeping is harmful for the health. Sleep deprivation badly effects memory and learning capacities and make body more vulnerable to diseases.
According to Prof. Dr. Murat Aksu, president of Turkish Sleep Medicine Association, who emphasizes on the necessity for sleep as well as other human needs such as eating, drinking and breathing, normal periods of sleeping changes between 4 to 11 hours from people to people depending on the genetic factors. The major proof of genetic root is that, twins have the same amount of sleep.
Sleep is a pre-requisite for health
Prof. Dr. Aksu believes that it is not possible to change the sleeping periods meaningfully. He says: “Sleeping is a period of no concession. It is a pre-requisite for being healthy. So, it can not be considered as a wastage of time from the birth to death. During times that we have to shorten it some un-intentional effect are resulted. The most obvious signal of sleep deprivation is the diminishing of memory and learning capacities and being more vulnerable against diseases. In a study made on university students, it was shown that, limiting the sleep period beyond a certain limit is not possible. Subjects have felt themselves tired, lost their concentration and some of their memory power. Subjects have lost their fight against sleepiness and gone into deep sleep. In short, you can not learn well by saving from your sleep period. Sleep is also dispensable for the formation of permanent memory.”
Sleep is a vital need for humans. Prof. Dr. Murat Aksu, says that most of the sleep experiments take 3 to 4 days during that periods they have gone reflexive sleeps.
“Longer the sleepless period, the higher frequency of sleep attacks. At the end of 3 days of experiment, stress, nervousness, unconscious of time, daydreaming, loss of perception are witnessed. At later stages shaking hands, feeling hot, aches and loss of sight may occur.
“The longest sleep experiment by now took 11 days on a university student in America. Following his lost of reality and on signals of psychosis at the eleventh day, the test was ended. Similar test that were done on animals ended with loss of lives at certain periods depending on the kinds of animals.”
75 of Turkish population sleep eight hours
Prof. Aksu, says on this: “Certain names in the history such as Napoleon, Churchill, etc., is known with their very short sleeping periods. However there are a good number of people that are more resistable to sleep deprivation. In Turkey, only 10 percent of people sleep 6 hours or less. Some people sleep 6 hours during weekdays and extend their sleep periods by 8 to 11 hours. About 15 percent of population sleep more than 8 hours.”
