I'm going to take a nap...

Okay so sleep is important, I understand and believe that..but what about when you just can't fall asleep?...think Christmas eve...everynight. "I can't sleep...I'm too excited..." Just for kicks I googled "The Effects of Sleep Deprivation"and after reading a few articles I am surprised my brain is able to function enough to type this...
Here is just a few things I learned ..

- The temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex is associated with the processing of language, in sleep deprived subjects there is no activity within this region.
-Sleep deprived test subjects have difficulties thinking of imaginative words or ideas. Instead, they tend to choose repetitious words or clichéd phrases
-difficult time reacting well to unpredicted rapid changes
-The ability of the body to metabolize sugar declines, turning sugar into fat
-the body produces more stress hormones and other substances that would increase inflammation, which increases the risks of heart disease and stroke
-People that are sleep deprived often feel cranky because that would make the amygdala, the part of the brain that process emotional events, to go into overdrive and the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that regulates reasoning, to become deactivated and this would make a person feel less stable than usual
....and my personal favorite...
-One of the possible side effects of a continued lack of sleep is death!
...early to bed...early to rise :)