PILLOW TALK:
the science behind the all-nighter
BY Rilyn McKallip
I
t’s that crazy part of the semester. Finals are coming up, and you find yourself staying awake later and later trying to cram for important tests. The night before your toughest final, you decide to pull an all nighter. It’s the only way you’ll be able to learn all those facts. The day of the test, you feel awful, but you make it through, and have a feeling you probably passed. As you go back to your dorm to crash, all seems well. You think to yourself, “that one night of lost sleep probably won’t hurt me at all.” How much does a sleepless night really affect you? As it turns out, sleep is crucial for many bodily functions, and even one night without sleep can have harmful physiological effects.1 Longer periods of sleep deprivation (generally defined as less than 7 hours of sleep a night) are associated with many health risks, including an increased chance of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.2 Why is sleep so important, and how do these sleep related problems occur? When you wake up after a good night’s sleep, you probably feel refreshed and have a general sense of well being. This is because your body repairs itself in your sleep. Hormones are released, organs are repaired, proteins and lipids are produced, and waste is removed from the brain. Some of the hormones released are related to growth and development, so getting enough sleep helps an individual grow and develop properly.3 The brain is full of activity during sleep, as it uses this time to clear out waste products that accumulate in the brain. This function of clearing out toxins and wastes in the brain is almost exclusive to sleep, as the brain cannot expel these products and process sensory information at the same time. Therefore, a lack of sleep causes these toxins to build up in the brain and impede memory and brain function.4 Additionally, while you are asleep, the brain repairs neurons and myelin sheaths, the protein and lipid combination that encloses the axons of neurons and allows them to fire faster. When you don’t get enough sleep, or get no sleep at all, the myelin may not be repaired or produced in the proper amounts.
