Stupid, Fat and Moody

With final exams coming up soon, I find myself skimming off the hours of sleep I get at night. I wake up most mornings exhausted and feeling overwhelmed. Today was no different than every other Monday. I spent the Sunday before, awake early in the morning for work and spent the rest of the day working on homework/reading. When I finally get the chance to hop into bed, all I can think about is the work I have to do the next day, so it takes me a bit of time to fall asleep. I began to wonder how many other people are feeling this way. And over the last few days I've found most of my friends have had the same complaints. All thoughts pointing to one idea, sleep deprivation. Of course my only thought when discovering this is to do some further research. I decided to share some of my findings on the topic.

Sleep deprivation can strain our immune system, ability to think and handle stress. And over time sleep deprivation has been proven to be fatal. Some of the side effects are, and not limited to, depression, hypertension, heart disease, irritability, slurred speech, tremors and slow reaction time. Our slowed reaction time has a huge affect on our daily activities that not only put ourselves in danger but others, those who are sleep deprived hand and eye coordination while driving is as bad or even at times worse than a drunk driver. The thought of this is terrifying to myself, because I don't drink and I always was proud of myself never being or putting someone else in harm by drinking and driving. But I don't know how many times Ive found myself driving after barely sleeping the night before.

Sleep deprivation causes dramatic changes in our weight, especially weight gain. The reason for this is the amount of sleep we get has a direct affect on our hormone levels. These hormones control many parts of our everyday physiological processes, which includes our metabolism.

So everyone keep in mind, as important as exams, projects and homework are; your sleep is just as important, actually strike that, your sleep is MORE important.