today's twenty-four hour society is starting to affect many. For most people

sleep has become a disposable commodity. Less than two percent of people

can function on a steady diet of five hours of sleep a night, but many people

try (Caldwell 57). More than 60 million Americans suffer from a severe lack

of sleep. Others that do not have a severe case of sleep deprivation still have

small cases of insomnia. Sleep deprivation is affecting various segments of

American society, including the workplace, schools and roads.

Sleep does not function as a voluntary act. In 1983, Alan

Rechtschaffen showed that going totally without sleep is fatal. He took a rat

and whenever it tried to sleep the floor moved and it had to walk, or it would

run into the wall. The rat soon lost a great deal of weight and died (Caldwell

20). It would take weeks to kill a person of sleep deprivation, but it would

eventually happen. The reason people need to sleep has not been discovered

by scientists. Scientists believe that sleep serves as time for the brain and

body to repair itself and recover the energy lost during the day. The true

best amount of sleep, just as there is not a best weight or height (Dunkell 1).

student body. The students that received an extra hour of sleep in the morning

be compared to a bank account. If a person overdraws during the day they

blood rise, as if a person were in the middle of an intensely emotional or

at their desk during non break periods (Toufexis 81). Even the president's job

as they reach stage four. The most important stage of sleep is the REM stage,

a.m. rather than 7:30 a.m. The schools that were allowed this had higher

rate become irregular, and the levels of adrenal and sexual hormones in the

Each year Americans spend 325 million dollars on medicines

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2202
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)