My Neural Trash

     

     As I sit here typing into my lap top, my mom yells at me from her room: “Isabela! Go to sleep now! And turn off the wi-fi!” I never really got it before. Her logic behind turning off the wi-fi so my brother could sleep well (it’s close to his room) seemed pretty stupid to me. I always told her that I preferred not to sleep for an entire week and later on be happy that I studied instead of sleeping rather than sleeping like a baby and doing bad at school.

     After reading Goodnight. Sleep Clean. by Maria Konnikova, I feel a little scared and start thinking of how my mom was right after all this time.

     Before, I thought that all the facts about the importance of sleeping were just myths. I was never one to believe that getting a “beauty sleep” really made a difference. Now, as I read Konnikova’s article I come to know about things that are much more important than just the typical “beauty sleep” and that are in fact, proven true by many researchers all over the world such as Dr. Maike Nedergaard, a Danish biologist who does research at the University of Rochester.

     By doing several tests on mice (human tests have not been made yet), researchers found out that “as your body sleeps, your brain is quite actively playing the part of mental janitor: It’s clearing out all of the junk that has accumulated as a result of your daily thinking.” I start thinking about the last week and how I never went to sleep earlier that 1 am each day. Next, I think about the scores I got on my finals and wonder if I could have gotten much better grades if I had just studied earlier and gone to sleep earlier rather than watching the Australia Open matches. Now I wonder.. Is my brain full of junk? Does this response even make sense at all or is it just my junky brain typing junky stuff?

     In her article about sleep, Konnikova mentions how “waste is cleared two times faster in a sleeping brain.”Again, I start picturing my brain full of gross things. Konnikova explains well how sleep affects the cleaning system in our brains and how “when our sleep is disturbed, whatever the cause, our cleaning system breaks down.” Also, as another researcher, Dr. Veasey puts it, “When we’re sleep-deprived, we can’t integrate or put together facts.” I always thought that suffering from sleep-deprivation would make you uglier but I never thought that a result could be “the acceleration of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.”

     In conclusion, Maria Konnikova’s article made me realize that sleeps brings many more drawbacks than just ugly pores and ugly circles under your eyes.  Even though there might be some aids for sleeping, “there is no evidence that aided sleep is as effective as natural sleep.” Fearful for the brain of mine being full of waste, I finish this response eager to go to bed. But of course not before I turn of the wi-fi from my brother’s room or else he will have nightmares like last week.

Vocabulary:

glial cells- a cell of the neuroglia