18. Why Some People Respond to Stress by Falling Asleep

 Elijah Wolfson wrote an article about the reason for the people to fall asleep after undergoing a lot of stress. He explains that whenever someone is in a dangerous situation or a violent fight, their body automatically releases stress hormones that put the body on alert. This hormone causes the heart to beat faster, increases the breathing frequency, the metabolism speeds up and finally, the larger muscles of the body receive oxygen rich blood. The author also mentioned that the sleepiness right after a stressful situation can be explained by a concept in psychology called “learned helplessness”. This concept explains that whenever an individual learns that a problem is helpless, they automatically give up and after a while, they become hopeless even if the context changes. Wolfson also included some examples that show this problem such as the case of LeAnna who went through a lot of stress during her high school years, consequently, nowadays, whenever she encounters a stressful situation, her first impulse is to sleep. The habit of sleeping right after a complicated situation is not an action to escape from the problem. In fact, it is a method to process and concretize the problem so that the individual may remember the problem vividly after their nap.  According to Dr. Edward Pace-Schott, professor at Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine, in order for a person to remember a specific event, it is necessary that they get a good night sleep because it is the moment when the brain consolidate the important information and erase the useless events. Another explanation for the people’s need to sleep right after a violent fight is because there are too many memories and facts that the brain needs to process, therefore, the body decides to shut down so that the brain may have time to process all the information. In addition, sleep actually protects the memory and emotional response of an individual because a good night sleep may produce “fear extinction memories” which are memories that can dull the effect of a traumatizing experience by triggering positive associations.

             Wolfson used clear and professional vocabularies to inform the readers about the reasons why some people fall asleep right after a threatening situation. In the beginning of the article, he used a personal experience to catch the attention of the audience. He started by talking about a fight between his wife and him and this event allowed him to introduce the main topic of the article because he realized that he is also a victim of sleepiness after a overwhelming event. Throughout the article, he used several examples to defend his arguments such as the situation of LeAnna and Daniel who both had a difficult past which caused them to fall asleep after a stressful experience. He also used some credible sources such as John Sharp a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Rebecca Spencer a professor at the University of Massachusetts Department of Psychology and Dr. Edward Pace-Schott professor at Harvard Medical School’s Division of Sleep Medicine. He quoted some of commentaries of these experts so that it increases the reliability of his article and it also allows the readers to have a deeper understanding of this subject. In addition, he also described a experiment that had two groups of dogs and they were both put into a threatening situation but the only difference is that one group had the chance of escaping while the other did not. This experiment allowed the readers to fully understand the concept of the article and the main argument of the author. The only negative aspect of this article is that the author should have summarized the main points on the last paragraph because this article offers so much information that it is confusing for the readers. If Wolfson had summarized this article in his concluding paragraph, then it would be less confusing and a more organized conclusion. Overall, his writing strategy was good and suitable for his audiences who are mainly toward the adults since they are mostly the ones who are undergoing a lot of stress. 

 http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/why-some-people-respond-to-stress-by-falling-asleep/282422/