Sleeping is Important

I'm one of those people with extremely irregular sleeping patterns. Some days I'll sleep up-to fourteen hours at night and take an afternoon nap the same day. Some days I'll stay awake twenty hours out of twenty-four. But that's okay; college does that to you. However, it is important to know the importance of sleep even when you're struggling to get some.

Studies conducted by Dr. Maiken Nedergaard, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Rochester, show that there is increased circulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. While the rat subjects were sleeping, the researchers found that their brain cells shrunk in size to allow the fluid to "wash away" waste proteins that are toxic to brain cells. These cells were seen to enlarge again after the animal woke up. This probably explains why we tend to think less clearly when we're sleep deprived as opposed to being more productive after a full night's rest.

Prolonged lack of sleep can also be a cause for Alzheimer's as one of the toxic proteins is beta amyloid, the substance that forms sticky plaques associated with the disease. So get some sleep folks because health is wealth.