University Essay: Sleep Patterns and Factors Affecting Individuals

This essay delves into the intricate factors that influence an individual's sleep patterns, emphasizing the critical role of sleep in mental and physical health. It examines the impact of lifestyle choices, such as daytime habits and technology use, on the sleep-wake cycle and circadian rhythm. The essay explores various strategies to improve sleep quality, including aligning with the body's natural sleep-wake cycle, maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, incorporating daytime napping, controlling light exposure, and practicing regular exercise. It also discusses the effects of caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol on sleep patterns. Furthermore, the essay highlights the importance of keeping a detailed sleep journal for diagnosing and managing sleep disorders, including obstructive sleep apnea. Finally, it addresses the use of melatonin supplements and the potential adverse effects of electronic devices on sleep, concluding with recommendations for promoting healthier sleep habits through lifestyle adjustments and, when necessary, medical intervention.

Running Head: SLEEP PATTERNS OF AN INDIVIDUAL
Sleep Patterns of an Individual
Name of Student
Name of University
Author Note

1SLEEP PATTERNS OF AN INDIVIDUAL
Sleeping directly affects the mental and physical health of a person. It is of utmost
importance that a person gets his/her full night sleep otherwise the entire day, the person might
feel tired or unable work. Any problem in the night time sleep affects the energy of the person
during the daytime; it affects productivity, emotional capabilities and also the body weight of the
individual (Hickie, et al., 2013). Yet many individuals stay awake at night till 3 a.m. without
even realizing the kind of effect it has on the human mind. However, the individual has a lot off
control over the kind of sleep he/she gets at night; the individual can also affect the quality of
sleep that he/she gets. There are few reasons why nighttime sleep gets affected one of them is
unhealthy daytime habits and wrong lifestyle choices, these affect the way a person sleeps at
night. These not only affect the way a person sleeps but also the way they cardiac health of the
person, there can be changes in the blood pressure levels of a person. To avoid these and to get a
proper night sleep, the person needs to monitor the sleep cycle they have. This essay will look
into the factors that affect the night sleep and the way the night sleep can be improved.
There are many steps that helps improve the cycle of sleep and in turn keeps the person
more energetic and healthy. The first step that can be taken is getting in sync with the body’s
natural sleep-wake cycle or what is known as the circadian rhythm (Scheer & Shea, 2014). This
is one of the most important ways to improve the sleep patterns. If the sleep wake cycle is kept
regular then the body will feel much more energized. If the sleep is completed at different hours
of the day but the stipulated amount of sleep is completed even it is during different times of the
day, this will help improve the sleep time. A proper amount of sleep has to complete by the
normal adult body.
Another strategy that helps keep the cycle of the sleep proper is sleeping at the same time
and waking up at the same time every day. The body’s internal clock stays in sync if on a daily

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basis a person goes to sleep on the time and wakes on the same time (Lemola, Ledermann &
Friedman, 2013). A proper bed time has to be chosen when the person actually feels restless and
sleepy and then that time has to be maintained on a daily basis. This will significantly help with
the sleep patterns and help the person get better rest. This will make the person more energized
and healthy throughout the day.
The sleep patterns should not be altered on the weekends; the time that has been chosen
for sleep should be maintained. Usually on the weekends, the sleep schedules changes as the
person tends to sleep more on the weekends, this again adversely affects the sleep of the patterns
of the individual, the individual might feel fatigues after sleeping for long hours hence the sleep
cycle has to be maintained and not disrupted during the weekends.
Another important strategy that will improve the sleep is daytime napping. During the
daytime sleeping-in should be avoided, 15-20 minutes nap is good for the health. Sleeping during
the daytime might make the person more tired and fatigued hence the 15-20 minutes naps are
fine during the daytime (Phillips et al., 2017). These pay off the sleep debt without disturbing the
sleep-wake cycle.
The after dinner drowsiness should be fought. If the person feels drowsy or sleepy before
the bedtime, the person should get up and do something that is slightly stimulating and will wear
off the drowsiness. If the drowsiness is encouraged, the person might fall asleep before the nap
time and then might wake in the middle of the night and then might have difficulty falling asleep
later.
The other tip that helps improve the sleep patterns of the person is by controlling the
exposure to light. Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone in the human body that is

3SLEEP PATTERNS OF AN INDIVIDUAL
controlled by the exposure of light and that is what regulates the sleep-wake cycle. When its dark
outside the brain secretes more melatonin hence makes the person feels sleepier vice versa less
sleepy when there is light. However, multiple aspect of the modern life can change the body’s
production of melatonin and shift the circadian rhythm (Caufriez, & Copinschi, 2015). There are
many ways to regulate the exposure to light. For example, if the morning coffee is consumed
outside, then the person might feel more wake as the sun directly hits the skin of the individual,
this does make the person feel more wake. Spending more time during the day also helps the
person feel less sleepy during the daytime. Exercising outside also helps with the sleep patterns.
The key to controlling the melatonin is by letting in some amount of light as this will help the
person with staying awake.
Another way of regulating sleep and getting better sleep at night is by exercising during
the day, the people who exercise during the day feel better at night and do not feel tired during
the day. Regularly doing some amount of exercise helps the person with symptoms of insomnia,
sleep apnea and increase the amount of time that a person gets deep sleep. The more vigorous the
exercise regime, the better is the sleep at night.
Proper food and eating habits also affects the way a person sleeps. Limiting the amount
of caffeine and nicotine is also a better way of improving the sleep cycle. The amount of caffeine
intake severely harms the sleeping pattern (Lohsoonthorn et al., 2013). Smoking also disrupts the
sleep patterns. If a person smokes before bedtime he/she might not be able to sleep through the
night as it affects the way sleep-wake cycle in a major way. Alcohol also should be avoided
before bed. Although it lets the person sleeps at night but affects the sleep cycle. These are few
of the ways in which the sleep patterns can be improved and the person might feel a lot more
energized.

4SLEEP PATTERNS OF AN INDIVIDUAL
Marinating a daily sleep journal might help the person in the sense that the health care
provider might be able to see the pattern and diagnose the problem that exists with the sleep pr
help treat any kind of sleep disorder (Czeisler, 2015). The sleep journal has to be detailed. It has
to contain certain details which include:
The time of going to bed and waking up.
The amount of time slept and kind of sleep that the person had deep or shallow.
The time that the person woke up at night, if at all they woke up during the night time.
The amount of caffeine and alcohol that was consumed.
The food and the drink that was consumed.
The stress and the emotional ups and downs of the day.
The medication and the drugs that were taken.
The amount of exercise that was done.
Maintaining this journal might help the person, if the person consults a physician, he/she will be
able to understand the sleep patterns from the journal. This is one of the ways of improving the
sleep-wake cycle but it will not change the pattern or improve the sleep cycle, in order to
improve the sleep cycle the person needs to follow the restrictions that was mentioned above.
There a lot of people who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, these might make it
compulsory for the person to consult a general practitioner and there are a certain ways through
which the general practitioner is able to control the obstructive sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep
apnea occurs when there is a limited amount of air flow during the sleep as a result of the
alteration in the anatomical function of the upper airway (Strollo Jr et al., 2014). This decreases
the oxy-hemoglobin saturation, resulting in fatigued sleep, excessive daytime sleepiness and a

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number of metabolic, inflammatory, neuropsychiatric, respiratory and cardiovascular disorders.
In these cases the doctor or the general practitioner might help the person as this is a medical
condition and the doctor’s intervention is needed (Drager et al., 2013). The doctor might
prescribe some medicine or there is a machine known as the c-pap machine which might help the
person sleep better (McEvoy et al., 2016). Other than any kind of medical condition, the general
practitioner might see the sleep journal and notice a pattern, if there are no significant the doctor
might also advocate some lifestyle changes that will help the person.
There are significant amount of population that admit that using the mobile phone or any
other technological device might hinder the sleep pattern. All the people who are night time
technology user might not realize the adverse effect it has on the health of the people. Using
electronic devices during the night time physiologically and psychologically harm the body of
the individual (Woods & Scott, 2016). The use of smart-phones or laptops during the night might
harm the body’s internal clock which means that it will suppress the sleep inducing melatonin
and cause the person to stay awake (O’DONNELL, S. H. A. N. N. O. N. & Driller, 2017). This is
because of the artificial short length blue light that is emitted from these devices that hampers the
sleep pattern of the person (Wolniczak et al., 2013). The more the amount of electronic devices
that are used by the person in the evening the difficult it is for the person to go to sleep. The use
of these devices during the bedtime disturbs the onset of the REM sleep (Hao, Xing & Zhou,
2013). REM is the acronym for rapid eye movement. This is the reason why the use of mobile
phones or rather any electronic devices should be avoided before bedtime.
The drug melatonin is hormone and dietary supplement that is commonly used a sleep aid
(www.helpguide.org 2019). It is although considered as a safe drug but there are some problems
with the drugs. There is a very little amount of research on the long term effects of melatonin.

6SLEEP PATTERNS OF AN INDIVIDUAL
Melatonin is a neuro-hormone produced by the pineal glands in the brain mainly at the night time
(Xie et al., 2017). These supplements are mainly used as a sleep aid. Some of the side effects of
the drug include dizziness, headache, nausea and agitation. However, that does not make the
drug particularly harmful, these symptoms can be caused due to anything. Melatonin
supplements are generally considered safe even the high dosage but in the short term, as
mentioned the long term side effects are not studied.
This essay concludes that for maintaining the sleep-wake there has to be proper lifestyle
changes and the consumption of alcohol and caffeine might be able to help a person sleep better
at night. There are a lot of sleep disorders that can be recorded in a sleep journal and the general
practitioner might be able to help with those.

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