Was staying up worth it?

    When you ask yourself "How much sleep do I need?", do you consider an answer based on what is healthy or what you can handle? If you were to give an answer regarding health, a natural answer would be eight to nine hours. What we can handle, though, can bring about an array of answers. Place yourself in the position of someone who attends school with relatively challenging classes  or extra curricular activities that keep you working through the day and night. Given these circumstances, I know of some people who would reply to the questions that they could handle maybe five, two, or as little to no sleep at all to keep going through the next day. I would say the same since I do what just that and I'm sure some of you would agree to. However, do we really know how badly this would affect us?

    The chart above gives us a general idea of how much sleep we need. Multiple charts differ, but this allows one to gather a relative understanding of how much is suitable. As a teenager myself, I would always say that eight hours is perfect. Even six hours would be good. Maybe even four? We'll wake up the same, right? Well, not necessarily. Even an hour difference in sleep times provides a change in performances the next day be it noticeable to you or not. However, finding how many hours of sleep you need for optical performance best determined by self evaluation. A careful analysis of how you perform one day after a recommended amount of sleep compared to one with your own set hours, such as two or four, is the key.

    Personally, my sleep schedule is two to four hours per night. Four out of eight, huh? I can go through a day with just that amount of sleep? Well, yes. I assume it is because I have grown accustomed to it. I've learned to naturally deal with it to the point where I am not as tired as I should be. Now then, I know some of you may be thinking of REM sleep cycles as to my successful manipulation and you may be right even if my clocked hours don't fit so perfectly. However, I think it's weird being able to do this for as long as I have. Lately, I have gotten concerned about how my sleep is affecting my performance since I have been struggling with things I used to do with ease. These afflictions are symptoms of something know as sleep deprivation - something I'm sure we all have learned about one way or another.

Symptoms of sleep deprivation include:

• Decreased attentiveness
• Trouble with memory retention 
• Loss of concentration
• Impaired motor skills
• Increased stress
• Lack of better judgement
• Increased risk of health problems
• Weight gain
• Lack of motivation
• Mental impairment 

    I've been experiencing a few of these for a while now due to my chronic lack of sleep. However, I only became truly aggravated when I began experiencing a decrease in the ability to retain memories or knowledge. I began to forget simple things and I realized I was forgetting them. It's not to say that it's the only symptom I've been dealing with, but it's just to let you know that only when something really prominent hits somebody does that truly enforce the person to begin to act against it.

Anyways, cheers and have a good night.