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Learning Challenge: Sleep (Pt. 3)

This week, I continue to learn more about sleep. In line with the health aspect of this adventure, I have learned more about the negative effects of sleep deprivation in this article.

One thing that this article confirmed for me was how harmful a lack of sleep can be. It goes into hallucinations, diabetes, bipolar disorder, etc, but the main idea is that we often think that sleeping less will help us be more productive, but it ends up harming us down the road. I used to stay up till around 2AM and wake up at 8 regularly, so not as big of a sleep deficit as many people, but the world is a completely different place when I get 7-9 hours of sleep using a consistent bed time schedule.

An interesting topic to follow up on is whether or not sleeping too much also has an adverse effect, and whether or not one can truly catch up on sleep. The interesting thing in this article is that it makes it clear that we do not know exactly why people sleep. There are theories, but no concrete conclusions. I would like to know it catching up is possible, and possible implications that might have.

Overall, this article reinforces not necessarily the importance of getting a good amount of sleep, but rather, the harms of deciding to not sleep at all.


People often choose not to sleep, leading to dangerous side effects later in life. Source: Wikipedia

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