參考資料：Ritter S. M., Ferguson S. (2017). Happy creativity: listening to
happy music facilitates divergent thinking. PLoS ONE12:e0182210.
10.1371/journal.pone.0182210
Weall have the kind of friend who sleeps very little every day. May be you’re one of them. I even know some people would brag about how little they sleep, just to prove how hard they work and how “efficient” they are, how they “cherish” their every waking moment. It’s just plain irony to me, because if you were a good time manager, you wouldn’t have to stay up in the first place.
I am the total opposite of these people. I need my sleep. A lot of sleep. No less than 7 hours. So it was inevitable for me ask them, “How do you survive with so little sleep? Aren’t you tired?” And almost always, I got a confident “No, I’m fine with sleeping 6 hours a day.”
As it turned out, they were wrong. They were far from “fine.”
Every physiological system of our body is regulated by sleep, and almost all severe diseases can be traced to be related to a lack of sleep.
In this article, I’m going to give you a quick glimpse of what sleep deprivation can do to you. I will talk about it in two aspects — cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s Disease.
The things I present here are scientific findings that are testable, replicable, and reliable. Note that I don’t present every detail from every study but only important findings and implications.
Cognitive Impairment
First, let’s take a look at how your cognitive ability would be impaired by a lack of sleep.
Obviously, it is harder to focus when you don’t have enough sleep. But to what extent does this affect you and how seriously is the effect? Take driving for example:
If you have less than 5 hours of sleep, the chance you get into a car accident is 30% higher.If you’re awake for more than 20 hours, you’re basically worse than a drunk driver.
Now, it is important to say, under the effect of alcohol, people simply react slower. However, if you dose off behind the wheel, you don’t react at all. When you’re drunk and you see a person walking cross the road, you might hit the brake a bit latter than usual. But when you fall asleep, even for a moment, you don’t see, and you don’t hit the brake.
Driving is the case that requires intense attention. What about other cognitive ability? Like learning? Many of us stay up late to catch up for the school work or to prepare for the exam tomorrow. How much can we stuff into our brain when we don’t have enough sleep?
Very little. It turns out that sleep is the “save button” to our memory (another quote form Matthew Walker).
In other words, without sleep, the words you read on the pages can’t be stored in your brain.
So next time when you think you “have to” stay up late for the exam, think twice, especially when you have to drive tomorrow. Or maybe think earlier, plan ahead so that you have enough sleep on the night before the exam.
Alzheimer’s Disease
Alzheimer’s is one of the leading cause of death worldwide. After 50, every two of us is likely to have this kind of disease. However, the cause of this disease and the cure for is have remained unknown. Even the diagnosis made for it cant’t be sure either. The only way to accurately know if one has this disease is still autopsy.
One reason that has been believed to be the cause of this disease is the chemical tau and the tangles it created at the neurons. According to a recent research, sleep deprivation could be an early bio-marker for this.
Although this finding is still pretty preliminary, it adds another layer to the importance of sleep.
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These are not my arguments, they are facts. Sleep literally influences every angle of our lives. Through evolution, we are who we are now, and depriving ourselves of sleep is against this rule. In fact, human beings are the only species that will intentionally deprive themselves of sleep.
Some people might say, “Those are just statistics, I could be the exception. I can totally survive with little sleep.” Yes, there’s a gene called DEC that allows some people to sleep little and show no symptoms of sleep deprivation.
But the chance to have this gene is less than being hit by a thunder.
Also, sleep deprivation is a debt you accumulate over time. You may not be aware of its harm when you’re young. But when you are in your 40s or 50s, it might manifest itself by a stroke, and you either survive or you don’t.
After knowing these facts, I simply cringe when people tell me sleep only 6 hours of sleep. What they don’t know is that they are not using their time wisely, they’re trading their waking time for living time. The simple truth is — the less you sleep, the sooner you die.
References:
Walker, M. (2017). Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. Simon and Schuster.Walker, M. P., & Stickgold, R. (2006). Sleep, memory, and plasticity. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 57, 139-166.Yoo, S. S., Gujar, N., Hu, P., Jolesz, F. A., & Walker, M. P. (2007). The human emotional brain without sleep—a prefrontal amygdala disconnect. Current Biology, 17(20), R877-R878.Barnes, C. M., Miller, J. A., & Bostock, S. (2017). Helping employees sleep well: effects of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia on work outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(1), 104.Disrupted sleep in one’s 50s, 60s raises risk of Alzheimer’s disease. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2019, from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-06-disrupted-50s-60s-alzheimer-disease.html
Learn more about this topic:
Written by Felix, Chen-wei, Yu. Graduate Student of Applied Psychology in KMU.
Mukherjee, A., & Dubé, L. (2012). Mixing emotions: The
use of humor in fear advertising. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 11(2), 147-161.
Lennon, R., Rentfro, R., & O'Leary, B. (2010). SOCIAL
MARKETING AND DISTRACTED DRIVING BEHAVIORS AMONG YOUNG ADULTS: THE
EFFECTIVENESS OF FEAR APPEALS. Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, 14(2).
Brennan, L., & Binney, W. (2010). Fear, guilt, and shame
appeals in social marketing. Journal of business Research, 63(2), 140-146.
Emily K. Vraga等人 (2019)，想要知道在應用了批判思維的方法，能否讓人消除錯誤訊息中的邏輯謬誤，以及用幽默卡通的呈現手段，是不是能改變閱聽人對於錯誤資訊的看法。實驗者使用兩種灌輸方法與控制組，搭配氣候變化，槍支控制，HPV疫苗接種等三種主題，讓受試者觀看一系列時事與假訊息的推特貼文後，進入這九種不同的介入組別，並隨後報告受試者觀念上的改變，以及對於幽默介入有效性的看法。
Emily K. Vraga, Sojung Claire Kim & John Cook. (2019). Testing Logic-based and Humor-based Corrections for Science, Health, and Political Misinformation on Social Media. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. 393-414. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2019.1653102
來自格拉納達大學心智、大腦與行為研究中心(Mind, brain and Behavior Center, CIMCYC)的研究者，Torres Marín、Navarro-Carrillo與Carretero-Dios近期於國際期刊Personality
and Individual發表新文獻。這篇新文獻指出傾向使用自我貶抑型幽默的人們在心理健康方面有較高分數，包含快樂(happiness)及社交性(sociability)等方面。同時，這樣的結果與傳統西班牙認為自嘲可以帶來心理正面影響的想法符合，因此，這三名研究者認為自我貶抑型幽默對心理健全的影響可能因文化差異而有所不同。
Jorge Torres-Marín, Ginés Navarro-Carrillo,
Hugo Carretero-Dios. (2018). Is the use of humor associated with anger
management? The assessment of individual differences in humor styles in Spain.
Personality and Individual Differences, 120: 193-201.
參考文獻： University of Plymouth. "Weight loss can be boosted fivefold thanks to novel mental imagery technique." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 September 2018. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180924095729.htm>.
