I decided to listen to “Is Sleep that Important?” from Stuff you Should Know. This topic interested me because I know its a very busy and stressful time of year for all university students and a lack of sleep is not uncommon, so I wanted to see what they had to say about that! They talk about how there have been a number of studies done to prove why we need sleep, but nothing has really been proven. The main theory that has been thought up is that our brain is like a computer….it takes in all of the information during the day and needs a chance to cool down and process everything at night. A study with lab rats showed that a rat that went without sleep for 3 weeks died from a lack of sleep. So obviously this proves that we need sleep to survive! Getting too much sleep in a night can also be a bad thing though. We need to make sure that our bodies get the right amount of sleep each night to function, which is about 8 hours a night. So all this talk about sleep is now making me even more tired……but I will be up all night, and for the rest of this week, doing homework! Oh, the life of a university student!!!
iTunes Podcast #1
1 12 2008
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I learnt that exact same thing in my psychology 102 class this semester. It is crucial that everyone gets enough sleep, especially students, yet we are given large amounts of assignments and readings that it is almost impossible to get enough sleep every night, unless you are an expert at time management (which very few people are).