Sleep deprivation is a problem that most America has to deal with on a daily basis.  When the human body is deprived of the things its needs such as food water and air the productivity level of that person decreases significantly. What many people fail to realize is that sleep is one of the things we need.  Because sleeping takes up so much time, in an ideal situation 8 hours a night, we tend to prioritize it less and less as commitments from other aspects of life such as school work family etc. start to pop up.  When we as humans sleep there are many things that are body does as oppose to the popular belief of us simply lying dormant.  One of the many things that our bodies do is replenish white cells that our body uses to fight off pathogens that cause disease.  This is why when we feel ill we have the tendency to sleep for longer hours.  An eight hour sleep cycle is split up into four stages: N1, N1, N3, and REM.  The first stage of sleep, N1, is not a stage of sleep is not where someone actually sleeps as oppose a transition phase from being awake to going to sleep. In this stage many people experience sudden muscle contractions and get a falling sensation. This stage consists of 2-5 percent of someone’s total sleep. The N2 stage is where the majority of humans spend their sleep and consists of 45-50 percent of a total sleep cycle. It is a light stage of sleep similar to the “power naps” that many people take. This stage is where the brain starts to rest, eye movement and brain waves become slower. The N3 stage of sleep is known as a slow wave sleep stage and is a form of deep sleep where many people believe memory is furbished. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep assists in procedural memory, memory that is known for things such as motor function, riding a bike, picking up a pencil etc.  The consequences for not going through all of these stages in a given night is that the next day the chance of accident is increased significantly.  If not gotten for a long period of time then sever diseases could occur such as heart attack, heart failure, high blood pressure, stoke and diabetes.  This is why it is important to get a healthy amount of sleep every night (eight to ten hours a night).