Have you ever felt that 24 hours a day is not enough? The first time I went to the university, a senior student said that “you can only chose two among study, sleep, and social life”. Well, I am willing to sleep only 4 hours a day as long as I can get all As on my grade report and be a social star. However, the truth is that I am pathetic sleep-alcoholics!
Sweet baby sleep in the bed http://maxpixel.freegreatpicture.com/Girl-Toddler-Sleep-Child-Portrait-Sweet-Baby-1151351
Enough sleep is essential to everyone since it ensures that our brain functions well. Human brain is like a network of many functional regions. When people are sleeping, this network will coordinate each brain region and deal with a load of information we take in at the daytime. Sleep loss will disrupt this coordinated activities and the damage of this network is associated with bad memory, Alzheimer’s disease and many other consequences.
Here is a Ted-talk video explained the negative consequences of sleep deprivation.
However, there is no doubt that many successful people in the world only need a little sleep to keep creative and productive during the work. Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, sleeps 4-6 hours a day; Apple CEO Tim Cook starts work at 4:30 A.M.; Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer reduced sleep time by sleep under her desk. How can these people success living with such a little sleep? Is it because of their talented genes? A study found the answer.
Researchers from the University of Utah have studied 800 people who claimed that they don’t need full-time sleep(i.e. 7-9 hours sleep). Researchers monitored the participants’ brain activities at daytime. They found that short sleepers have increased motions of amygdala — a region in brain that manages emotion and sensation. This implied that short sleepers pushed themselves to keep awake by engaging into busy works. Even though some people claimed that they function well during the day, but to some extent their brain works like drunk.
Finally, the lack of sleep results in the same negative effect on everyone. If you wonder why some people can sleep 4 hours and still keep up enthusiasm but you can’t, the only difference is that successful businessmen/women have a stronger motivation and push themselves live in an intense living pattern. However, health is also very important and chronic sleep deprivation may lead to irreversible damages. It is like a race between health and ambition, nobody knows who will touch the line at the first.
