I’m going to Disneyla--Wait a minute. Rewind back through the last 72 hours when you didn’t sleep more than five or six hours a night, because you stayed up studying. Partying and Disneyland can be pretty tempting after a long and stressful week of exhausting not only your brain, but also your mental stability. First, though, you need some sleep.
As a priority that faces a lot of competition, sleep often gets pushed aside for more important endeavors. Usually those are activities like intramural soccer, visiting the bars, heading to the ski slopes, or just hanging with friends. During finals, however, all your time is inevitably devoted to books, notes, PowerPoint slides, and highlighting. When so many hours add up for those few big exams, it’s hard to remember when you last studied the backs of your eyelids. Ranking sleep higher on your priority list is important, though.
According to one study performed by researchers in the U.K., continuing a pattern of sleep deprivation for just one week can alter more than 700 genes in your body. That’s equivalent to altering one chromosome inside your body. That might not sound like much, but the difference of one chromosome could match to a list of chromosomal syndromes and genetic diseases. This isn’t to say that losing sleep will lead to a syndrome or disease that you didn’t have before, it means merely to put into perspective how powerful sleep loss can be.
Some serious health concerns that are consequences of sleep loss include high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes. Health defects aside, little sleep can make you feel a bit crazy. It could also make you think you are hungry after you’ve just eaten, or weaker than usual. Just as many studies, including the one above, have concluded, continuing this behavior leads to more compounding results. Keeping up with staying up, or awake, is manageable for a time. After so many days of it though, your body is ready to give up. You don’t want this to happen the day of a big final exam, so tracking your shuteye is important. One more task on a long list? Maybe. Still, paying attention to the well being and optimal functioning of your body is as important as those grades. Try not to think of it as homework, rather, envision the bags under your eyes when you are 80.
Taking care of your body in your twenties will influence the continuation of such practices as you age. Not only will this promote better health, it could help you live longer. Finals might be important, but nothing worth taking away from other adventures or undertakings when you’re old and gray. Most likely, more sleep will allow you to have one more drink and not fall right to sleep on a bench on Pearl Street. Still, who knows! It could help you get to Disneyland when you’re 101.
