(Alarm buzzer) (Shuffling) (Teeth brushed) (Coffee brewing) (Typing sounds) (Snoring)


(Intro)

When I was in high school at the end of the last century (which is really weird to say), we had a bit of a budget crunch. That is to say, the district could never get school funding passed so they had to figure out how to deal with a steadily increasing student body but no extra money for improved facilities or more and better teachers. So, the district came up with an idea: split sessions. Essentially, you'd take half the students and shift them earlier in the day, and take the other half and shift them later in the day. That way, you only had the full student body using a single facility for a bit during the middle of the day, during which some students could be at lunch and not using the classrooms anyway.

That was, as you can imagine, awful. To this day I have no idea who came up with it or why they thought it would work and, frankly, I think it was probably a way to force the funding issue because, hey, what's worse: increased taxes or this nonsense?

Regardless, I, as a teenager, was leaving the house at 6:30am. Leaving the house. Not just getting up, but actually showered, fed, and on the road at 6:30am. To be fair, I got out of school before noon so I had the whole day to work or do homework or just hang out but still. 6. 30.

I get up usually before 6am now but I just turned 38 and we have dogs as alarm clocks, so that's different. Teenagers? They are biologically not made for that. They go to sleep late, they wake up late, and in doing so they're only doing what their bodies are _chemically instructing them to do_. And this actually makes sense: teenagers produce melatonin, the chemical that tells your body it's beddy-by time, basically, about 3 hours later than adults do. Shift your entire schedule by three hours, that's how they're actually functioning. 

So here's the rub (for teenagers, especially): when do we traditionally expect individuals in this society to do the work and make the decisions that frame the rest of their lives? Right. The exact same time we're forcing them to do it while sleep-deprived. And that isn't good for anybody. Remember reading Shakespeare at 7:30am? Neither do I. I know I did it but I definitely don't remember it.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, children aged 6-12 should get 9-12 hours of sleep while teenagers aged 13-18 years should sleep 8-10 hours. Just imagine what those brilliant young minds could accomplish if they all were that well rested. Unfortunately, only 42% of 6-8th graders and just 27% of 9-12th graders get enough sleep on school nights.

But what about traditional college students, the most chronically sleep-deprived demographic there is, I'd imagine, right after new parents. Well, they're not much better than high school students. The National Institutes of Health report that only 30% of college students say they get 8 or more hours of sleep per night, 60% are quote "dragging, tired or sleepy" 3 days a week, over 80% say this lack of sleep negatively impacts their academic performance, and sleep issues rank as the second biggest cause of academic difficulties, right behind stress.

How to mitigate this? Various ways: drink less alcohol, cut back on caffeine and energy drinks, don't take stimulants, put the phone away before bed (or, at the very least, use a blue light filter and turn the brightness down), and, for Pete's sake, stop doing the all-nighter. I can say from experience it is not all it's cracked up to be. You're better off studying, sleeping, and then taking the test (you will actually remember that content _better_ after you sleep).

You need your sleep. Everybody needs their sleep.

## Deep sleep and toxins

Really, it's not just the time you get to sleep or the amount of sleep you get that's important. It's also the _quality_ of that sleep. When people use the term "deep sleep," they're usually just talking about sleep after which they feel very rested. In fact, "deep sleep" is also a technical term for a phase of the sleep cycle. It's not just that you sleep well and feel rested. A recent study points to evidence that during quote "deep sleep" the brain actually goes through a kind of self-cleaning cycle. From an NPR write-up (link in the show notes, as always), "During deep sleep, waves of cerebrospinal fluid coincide with temporary decreases in blood flow. Less blood in the brain means more room for the fluid to carry away toxins, including those associated with Alzheimer's disease."

So if you needed a good reason to get some nice, uninterrupted sleep, there you have it.

## Sleep depravity

But what happens when you don't get enough sleep? How do you know you're sleep deprived? Well, if you ever doze off while reading or watching television or even just riding in a car, you're probably sleep deprived. 

Being sleep deprived impacts literally everything you do: you'll have difficulty focusing, your reaction times will be slower, you can't actually learn something you're trying to learn, you can become emotionally unstable, your behavior can become erratic, even have difficulty coping with change. Children are likely to get angry, impulsive, suffer from mood swings, depression, or just lack motivation. All because of sleep deficiency.

You've probably heard the little bar trivia fact about how X number of hours being awake is equal to Y amount of drinks. It is actually true. A 2000 study in Occupational & Environmental Medicine found that after 17-19 hours without sleep, participants' results on tests were equivalent to having a blood-alcohol content of 0.05% and response-speeds and accuracy measures were actually _worse_ than those with that BAC level. As participants went longer without sleep, their performance declined to the equivalent of having a BAC of 0.1%.

For context, a BAC level 0.1% is enough to get a DUI in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. 

So, look: make time to get enough sleep. Do whatever you need to do to make that happen. Turns out it's way more important than you may have ever thought. Your life may literally depend on it.

(Outro)

Once again, thank you for listening to this little podcast-thing of mine. If you found it entertaining or informative or useful, please do subscribe and rate it on the podcatcher of your choice, whether that's iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or however you listen. And, as usual, I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on Twitter at newprofcast. Show notes, transcripts, and more can be found on the website at thenewprofessor.com. Until next time.