How Lack Of Sleep Affects Your Body
It is no secret that life in a big city is a risky one, especially so for students, having to balance the downtown’s delights with their studies. Most of the danger, though, comes first and foremost from the students themselves. Inexperienced minds are quick to sacrifice what is, perhaps, one of the most important parts of their life- - their sleep — for more pleasures or last-minute reading. But here’s what toll this takes on their body.
Have you ever found yourself in the following situation: you come home late at night, the lights are already out, and you have classes early in the morning -better get to sleep, right? But what if there are still some things that need to be done? And so you force yourself to stay awake, work a couple of hours more, and get it all dealt with. All is right in the world now! The small fact that you’ve only got four or five hours left to sleep seems very insignificant at that point. You happily doze off, contemplating the way to approach your tomorrow.
And then you wake up. It is really hard getting up, and staying awake in your classes is even harder. All those plans you made before going to sleep? You see them crumble now, as you are unable to concentrate well enough to accomplish your objectives, or even muster enough energy to do much of anything. Maybe you feel abnormally irritated with other people, maybe you nod off every couple of minutes, or maybe something else. And it can all be traced back to that moment you decided it was alright to sacrifice some of your sleep.
Then the night comes, and you feel like you must make up for your daytime shortcomings. You start working, and once again find yourself giving up your sleep time. The cycle continues, day after day, night after night. Then, at the most inopportune moment — maybe you have an exam or a date lined up — you just can’t force yourself out of your bed. These are the effects of sleep deprivation.
Of course, these aren’t the only circumstances that create such a situation. Maybe you work a night shift, maybe your neighbours love to party every day and nothing can make them stop, or maybe even it is you who loves hosting parties; the reasons are many, yet the result is always the same — your work capability being crippled every single day. The most common case for a student would probably be the exam period: a lot of people can’t help but cram the night before the finals. In truth, what such behaviour usually leads to are not good marks but rather nervous breakdowns caused by sleeplessness.
Medically speaking, lack of sleep affects most of your internal organs and processes, and may result in a number of very different afflictions, from hand tremors and headaches to violent behavior and mania. It might not be something you will actually experience in your university life, but over time the problems would add up, and at a certain point you may find yourself facing more problems that you’ve ever solved with stripping yourself of sleep. If you persist, well, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to find oneself with a heart disease or seizures.
It is very important to understand that the only person that can best take care of you is yourself. With full power over your life, the temptation to give up something that would only hurt you in the future in exchange for something you can get today is very high. Of course, in some cases such a trade-off is quite acceptable, but in the case of one’s health one should always remember that we only really get one for our life. As such, we shouldn’t trade it lightly.
