Joshua Barber
Professor Gorsky
English 101C-22
22 October, 2009
Explanatory Synthesis Essay
Untitled Explanatory Synthesis Essay
Sleep is a fascinating occurrence that all of us experience for at least a bit in a typical day.
Sleeping can rest our mind and even send us to a world of our own all at the same time. However, the
act of getting to sleep isn’t always the easiest thing to accomplish. In fact, people have turned to pills to
aid them in falling asleep. Recent studies show that there has been a dramatic increase in use of
prescription sleeping pills by teens and young adults. Sleeping pills can be a good thing for teens since
teens that lack sleep also lack concentration. Some doctors feel that teens and young adults should not
be using sleeping pills at all, while other doctors feel they are necessary for medical conditions. Another
question is if sleeping pills are to be prescribed then how big should the dosage be? There are many
complex reasons as to why teens and young adults use sleeping pills and they are all worth looking into.
Teens these days need to be able to focus in order to succeed in school, work, and life in
general. Without sleep teens lose their ability to concentrate. Lack of concentration can lead to lower
grades, nodding off at school, unhappiness, and even nodding off behind the wheel while driving. More
than one quarter of high school students fall asleep at school at least once a week. 73% of adolescents
who aren’t happy, or are tense or nervous, also report that they don’t get enough sleep at night. These
facts are all signs that the teens in our country aren’t getting the proper sleep that they need. Our teens
and their doctors are aware of this also and that’s why they turn to sleeping pills for an answer.
However, are sleeping pills really the answer to this crisis? Our doctors today are in a debate over this
question and multiple viewpoints have been formed because of it.
There are doctors in our society who feel that sleeping pills shouldn’t be used by teens, unless a
medical condition requires it. Dr. Judith Owens, the director of the Pediatric Sleep Disorder Clinic at
Hasbro Children’s Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island says, “The last thing we want to suggest is that
it’s O.K. to throw a medication at something without understanding the problem.” Dr. Owens has a very
good point here. Why give someone a medication without fully understanding the problem? Without
fully understanding the problem we might be prescribing unnecessary prescriptions for our teens.
Thomas Anders, president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and a
researcher in pediatric sleep disorders at the UC-Davis M.I.N.D. Institute says, “I’m not sure why people
are prescribing these medications. Sometimes children with neurodevelopmental problems like autism
have sleep problems that are very severe and we sometimes prescribe medication for them.” Anders
points out how children with neurodevelopmental problems have a need for sleep medications and
therefore they are prescribed to them.
If sleeping pills are to be prescribed to teens and young adults then what pill and dosage should
be used? This is yet another question that doctors today are pondering. One reason why the dosage is a
big deal is that sleeping pills not only affect our sleep, but they also affect our learning and memory.
Mary A. Carskadon, a sleep researcher at Brown Medical School and Bradley Hospital, in Providence
says, “We need studies because we need to know how sleeping pills are affecting learning and memory,
much less sleep.” If the pills are affecting the way we learn and remember things then doctors should be
very careful when prescribing dosages of these pills to our teens. A main problem in teens is that they
are more likely to have problems falling asleep than staying asleep all night. In this case Sonata and
Ambien may be more appropriate for them since they are shorter-acting drugs. Dr. Helene A. Emsellem,
a neurologist and the director of the center for Sleep and Wake Disorders in Chevy Chase, Maryland
says, “Ambien is a category B drug for pregnancy, no wonder doctors think it might be safe for
teenagers.” A category B drug is a class of drugs that are thought to pose no risk to a developing fetus. If
Ambien doesn’t harm a pregnancy then doctors feel it’s safe to use on teenagers.