As children we all have heard the phrase, “Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.” For many children hearing this before they go to bed would scare them into staying up all night. Pulling the covers up to their eyes, while surveying the room for scary monsters and creepy crawlers, children await the morning without having slept a minute. With the moon shining and the coyotes howling, they realize that a very long night’s ahead. The problem rests with this happening every day for more than one night, only to become the underlying cause to why their performance in school has dropped. An essential part of life being everyone needs sleeps but do we all know why? Many would say so that we can grow which is not wrong but it can get more complex. When most people hear the phrase “memory loss” they think of old people, but now findings show that not enough sleep can lead to memory loss in adults. Scientists have done many studies involving both adults and elders and found some interesting facts.
We never realized it as children but when our parents took us to bed at eight or even earlier, it was because we needed those full nights of rest. We need to sleep in order to live a healthy lifestyle. The older we get the more we think we have grown into the iconic Superman body and can pull all-nighters. Just like in our childhood we need a good night’s rest. Adults need a minimum of 7 hours of sleep each night to be “rested” for the next day. With busy lives and children to take care of it becomes difficult to put ourselves first to fulfill these requirements. Statistics show that 1 out of 3 adults get less than 7 hours of sleep; working hard, scientists strain to find the results of this.
They first studied older people and noticed that they woke up more during their sleep basically not allowing them to fall into that deep sleep where full recovery takes place. So then how do older people go to bed so early and still have horrible memories? I cannot tell you have many times my grandfather has gone to bed at five pm only to wake up at seven in the morning. That is a whopping fourteen hours of sleep. It all depends on the quality of sleep. Seniors are just not capable to get into that deep sleep, the result is forgetfulness. Experiments at the University of California, Berkley, have answered many of the questions about memory and sleep. Researchers, headstrong and determined, have found out that the frontal lobe creates slow waves which helps people fall into deep sleep. With age, the frontal lobe of older people seems to shrink causing memory loss. They found out that most of the people having trouble either falling asleep or staying asleep, which they called “bad sleep,” led to Alzheimer’s. So you better make sure you get that full night of rest!
Although, interestingly enough, being young makes you still susceptible to memory loss. Hengi Rao and fellow researchers at the University of Pennsylvania conducted a study on adults that had a full 9 hours of sleep and then stayed up a full 24 hours afterwards. They discovered that these adults failed in the memory category. Sure enough after sleeping another 9 hours after, they regained what scientists said they lost. Hengi Rao states, “It’s critical to obtain recovery sleep after sleep loss and avoid chronic sleep deprivation in order for the brain to restore the integrity of this neural network.” (Landau, CNN Health) Towards the more physiological perspective, when we sleep our brain takes a break and to do some cleaning up during the night; during this time our body sends major information to the hippocampus, the memory factory of the brain. Scientists have also discovered when we get old and cannot sleep as well as we used to or when we cannot fall asleep at all, our brain doesn’t have that opportunity to store memories in the hippocampus, so we lose some memory.

We have all had those nights where we just could not fall asleep where we would lie awake, looking at the ceiling waiting for that alarm clock to go off. Who knew that those nights could affect us that drastically during the day? I never really thought to look at it that way; I knew my performance would not be up to par, however, I did not think it had as big of a health effect. Of course I knew that it would affect my performance but I never knew it would take a chunk out of my memory. Another interesting fact that just 2 hours of sleep makes a HUGE difference to the brain. Those 2 hours can actually make a big difference in whether we lose memory or not. Every minute counts so we should hit that snooze button more often.

Obviously most college students do not get the full amount of rest that they are supposed to. Their best friend during those long grueling nights is a pack of Red Bull and many cups of coffee, all so that they can stay up without having to rest. Unable to chuck the books to the side to catch some shut eye, students pull all-nighters very frequently. The ironic part lies with the students. By not sleeping because of having to study, their brain will not retain the information anyway. The brain can be compared to the battery of a phone, it needs to be charged every day or it will not function the following day. I can attest to doing this; being a student myself I know things at school plus extracurricular activities can keep your hands tied making it very difficult to being able to go to bed. Especially when finals approach all-nighters are common! Parents do the same thing with their children, they need to take care of themselves, their children, and work for the next day. We only have so many hours during the day before we are supposed to go to bed; it is sometimes hard to complete everything in the time given so the only option seems like we are forced to stay up. The main priority here does not include sleep. The best solution would be to go to bed early and wake up after 7 hours and to start whatever you wanted to do the night before. Fully charged and ready to go, your brain’s performance will clearly show.

In essence, one day without sleep will not hurt you but make sure you try to get in the full allotted time needed so you can stay healthy. Although if you do see a reoccurring pattern of not being able to fall asleep or being able to stay asleep you should consult your doctor. Remember to sleep tight and get those full 7 hours of sleep!