What staying up all night does to your brain - Anna Rothschild
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Let’s Begin…
You’re just one history final away from a relaxing spring break. But you still have so much to study! You decide to follow in the footsteps of many students before you, and pull an all-nighter. So, what happens to your brain when you stay up all night? And does cramming like this actually help you prepare for a test? Anna Rothschild explores how a sleepless night impacts your cognitive function.
Additional Resources for you to Explore
Although light and dark are the biggest influences on circadian rhythms, other influences include food intake, stress, physical activity, social environment, and temperature. In our modern era, new influences include nighttime light pollution and shift work, and these can have detrimental health impacts.
When your body's clock determines its almost time to sleep your pineal gland begins to produce melatonin. Melatonin can also be ingested as a sleep-aid on a short term basis. If you're interested in taking melatonin for sleep, its important to keep lights low before bed and limit technology that could confuse your brain about the sleep/wake cycle. Importantly, if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or have autoimmune or seizure disorders or depression, melatonin could be dangerous.
If insomnia or all-nighters are impacting your functioning, you might be falling victim to "microsleeps," or naps that only last seconds. Alarmingly, even those getting 6 hours of sleep nightly for 14 days have as many microsleeps as those pulling an all-nighter- they are just less cognizant of their fatigue.
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Anna Rothschild
- Director Biljana Labović
- Narrator Jack Cutmore-Scott
- Storyboard Artist Wing Luo
- Art Director Noam Sussman, Homework Studio, Ali Kellner
- Animator Noam Sussman, Axel Kinnear, Sam Grainger, Ali Kellner
- Produced by Gerta Xhelo, Abdallah Ewis
- Editorial Producer Shannon Odell
- Editorial Director Alex Rosenthal