0910AW 同主题写作第七期 ARGUMENT167 by Didoy

DidoyUID: 2181213

谢谢大家！:loveliness:

167.A folk remedy* for insomnia, the scent in lavender flowers, has now been proved effective. In a recent study, 30 volunteers with chronic insomnia slept each night for three weeks on lavender-scented pillows in a controlled room where their sleep was monitored. During the first week, volunteers continued to take their usual sleeping medication. They slept soundly but wakened feeling tired. During the second week, the volunteers discontinued their medication. As a result, they slept less soundly than the previous week and felt even more tired. During the third week, the volunteers slept longer and more soundly than in the previous two weeks. This shows that over a short period of time lavender cures insomnia.

The research proves the effect of the scent of lavender by conducting a three-week research, in which the effect of sleeping medication and the lavender-scented pillows have been used. By reading the process of the research and the methodology, it seems that there are some fallacies in this research which make it not reliable enough. I will discuss the flaws in the following paragraphes.

First, as we all know, there are many different reasons behind insomnia, for example, it could result from over stress or people’s abnormal regulation. The research does not control these factors of the group, which means that all 30 volunteers might have diverse problems leading to insomnia. In addition, the research also does not tell us if these volunteers have taken sleeping medication before, because sometimes people might immune to the medicine they have taken for a long time and side effects might show more obviously if they addict to the medicine. Thus, as the group of volunteers is not a controlled group, the methodology is doutable.

Next, the research states that by the third week, all the volunteers sleep soundly on the lavender-scented pillow because of the effect of the scent of lavender. However, in my opinion, the reason they had a good sleep might be because they feel so tired during the first two weeks, especially during the second week, when they didn’t have sound sleep at night. Thus, it is not because of lavender, but because of their tired body which help them sleep soundly. Furthermore, the report of the research does not tell us if the volunteers wakened up feeling tired during the third week, so we don’t know if the scent of lavender really cures insomnia as the reports states.

Besides the fallacies discussed above, there might be some other impacts behind the research, such as cohort effect. When 30 people sleep together in a room, they will have impacts on each other. During the first two weeks, they might feel uncomfortable with so many people in one room, so they rely more on the sleeping medicine; neverhteless, during the last week, they might be more familiar with each other and they might feel more secure and comfortable, so they have a better sleep. Thus, cohort effects might play a role in the process which misled the researchers.

Above all, the argument is not as logical as it seems like. In my point of view, the researchers should control the group and try best to reduce other effects might have impacts on the reults. They also need to consider their methodology as how to evaluate the sound sleep and how to monitor people’s behavior.