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Sleep deprivation on university students
Effects of sleep deprivation on academic performance
Effects of sleep deprivation in college students
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College, it is a time of excitement and change. For many students this is the time to enjoy life, and live to the fullest. At least, that is what we see in the movies that feature college student behavior. However, college is also a time of sacrifice, where students give up valuable things in pursuit of higher education for a better future. For example, college students give up time and lots of it, to dedicate it to studying. A major source of that sacrificed time is relative to sleep. It is common knowledge that on average an adult should receive approximately seven to nine hours of sleep a night. In college, most students feel like anywhere from four to six hours of sleep will suffice for a given day because immediately following classes
However, college is more than sacrifices, and it gives back. In college you meet new people, make new friends, have life changing experiences and make amazing memories, and also get to experience things like alcohol and drugs. Those are some of the amazing perks of college, but as previously mentioned, it is filled with some sacrifice and we do get some amazing things in return but one of the not so amazing benefits is stress. So, basically we give up sleep and we receive stress while in college, and one can influence the other. I believe that it is somewhat obvious that the more stressed a person is the less likely they are to sleep, and that naps impact sleep patterns and performance. However, I also think that I like most other students I have talked to since I have been in college, that when I have a big paper or test coming up the first thing I give up is sleep. Then I even sacrifice sleep to unwind and enjoy things (like Netflix) I traditionally can’t because I am stressed or working on homework or studying. Therefore, my health intervention is to obtain the appropriate amount of sleep for my age group, which varies by source but averages out to about seven to nine hours, in hopes that I might reduce my stress level and help me maintain a healthier
The article also takes into account the time of day of the naps, and also the effects of sleep and naps on memory. Therefore, it accounts for the effects of napping on human’s ability to perform tasks. There were 32 participants mostly female with 9 males and 23 females at approximately 22.5 years of age (Groeger, Lo, Burns, & Dijk, 2011). The design of the experiment was a between groups design, and the structure was that each participant would get no more than six hours of sleep then an 80 paired words were given in attempt to gage memory after sleep and they were tested the words after 10 minutes of reading them, and they rated how tired they were. Next, they were assigned to either morning or afternoon nap times and the naps were 90 minutes each, and then they were given a series of tests that were given five minutes after waking from the nap. These were very steep measures for researching this very interesting
College athletes are a busy bunch. In a USA Today article by Steve Wieberg, a study found that college athletes spend anywhere from 36-48 hours on their sport alone. These athletes also spent 30-45 hours on academics (Wieberg). With only 168 hours in a week, more than half of these students’ weeks are spent on mandatory athletic or academic activities. Additionally, many of these students participate in volunteering, extra study sessions, clubs, etc. These students also must budget into their schedules time to eat, sleep, shower, clean, and socialize. With all of these commitments, the actual recommended sleep amount o...
Anderson, Ph.D., Keith J. “College Students try to Cheat Sleep Needs.” Polytechnic Online. 13 Feb. 2002. 2 Feb. 2004. <http://poly.union.rpi.edu/article_view.php3?view=1218&part=1>.
“When the going gets tough, the tough take a nap.” This statement by Tom Hodgkinson perfectly describes the solution to the life of the average American high schooler, who wakes up early, rushes to school, and undergoes several grueling classes, only to later participate in extracurricular activities and return home to complete homework. Due to all these activities, only a vast minority of teenagers obtain the amount of sleep they need in a night; Tom Hodgkinson’s quote proposes a solution to this problem. By instituting naptime in high schools, students could simply nap to refresh themselves when the going gets tough, whether that be an excessive amount of homework, an extremely demanding test, or a sports practice that lasts long into the
Many times people think they can accomplish more if they could eliminate so much sleeping time. However, they are only hurting their productivity if they lose sleep. Two articles deal with the issue of sleep deprivation. The College Student Journal published an article about the grade-point average of college students and sleep length, while U.S. News & World Report produced an article dealing with the lack of
Being a college athlete is very tiring. College athletes have to endure a ton of things. From six AM practices, to midnight study sessions, being a college athlete is hard. To be a college athlete, the athlete has to be prepared to get used to getting little to no sleep. With early morning practices, class and then studying, with possibly a lifting session, a college athlete needs to be prepared to be pushed not only physically, but also mentally. To be a college athlete it takes a lot of mental toughness. A college athlete has to find it in them to do whatever it takes to study for all of their classes, meaning staying up until necessary, and then waking up the next morning to get up and practice. This is one of the hardest things for college athletes. Mental toughness is a whole other level when it involves sleep. Where one would say, “No. It is fine. I will just wing the test. I am too tired to study.” Or, “I will just study in the morning.” Athletes have to be prepared to break mental boundaries and drive themselves to success. They have to realize that other things are more important and that sleep will have to wait. Megan, a
In this experiment conducted by Turner, T.H. et al (2007), the researchers studied a sample of healthy, young individuals. Forty subjects total eighteen who were women spent six full nights and five days at the University of California, at San Diego General Clinical Research Center’s J Christian Gillin Laboratory of Sleep and Chronobiology. For this experiment participants were excluded for reasons such as having psychiatric history, a significant medical condition, or taking nicotine or any illegal substance. Three days prior to the study, participants were requested to halt consumption of any and all alcohol and caffeine. A polysomnography was completed over the course of the first night to identify or rule out the existence of any intrinsic sleep disorder that a participant may have had prior to the study. Furthermore, those being observed had to maintain a habitual sleep schedule of around seven to nine hours per night. After the second night, the total sleep deprivation (TSD) period began, where participants were to remain awake for the duration of the experiment. During TSD, subjects were able to move but were not allowed to take part in strenuous exercise, sun exposure, using of any type of stimulant, or sleeping. Various continuous recognition tests (CRTs) designed to observe working memory and sleep deprivation were administered to the
Austin states that most students manage to “get less sleep during weekdays and more sleep on weekends to pay back the sleep debt” (36). But this sleep pattern is not what the body is used to during the week and actually affects the student more than he or she thinks. The pattern of sleep the student chooses to have on the weekends makes it difficult to rise each morning for early classes, and it increases his or her sleepiness throughout the week (Austin 36). While each student thinks sleeping more on the weekends benefits them, it actually hurts them because it makes their sleep patterns irregular. When this happens it makes the week harder to deal with because everything is out of
The authors and scientists from a different study by the U.S National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health on long and short-term sleep deprivation state directly that “in certain jobs, people face sleep restriction. Some professions such as health care… require working at night. In such fields, the effect of acute total sleep deprivation (SD) on performance is crucial” (Alhola & Polo-Kantola, Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance). Depending on their schedule, nurses can often be susceptible to sleep deprivation and are no exception, especially if they are working long hours. The study performed research on how acute and chronic sleep deprivation can affect the brain and how it can slow down or worsen thought process and rationality throughout the day for working adults. The authors also explain that “motor function, rhythm, receptive and expressive speech, and memory ...deteriorated after one night of SD.” (Alhola and Polo-Kantola, Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance) Although everybody is affected by a lack of sleep differently, some might have the ability to handle it a lot better than others, but it is fair to say that no one can perform their jobs perfectly if their brains are being affected by sleep deprivation. This organization concludes this study by explaining that there is still much research that needs to be
Research shows that sleep is a necessity in order for someone to be able to perform at their maximum potential. College students are no exception to the rule and are often at a greater risk to suffer from conditions that accompany sleep deprivation. Regardless of the time period, a college student must be well rested in order to perform at his or her best in terms of physical performance, memorization capabilities, and test-taking abilities. Also, without adequate sleep, the person will be more susceptible to illnesses, both mental and physical. In conclusion, I believe that sleep deprivation among college students is extremely common and has a direct effect on how well that student will perform or feel.
Milner, C. E., Cote, K. A. (2008). Benefits of napping in healthy adults: Impact of nap length, time of day, age, and experience with napping. Journal of Sleep Research, 18(2), 272-281
In the world of higher education, students at the collegiate level are highly likely to be overwhelmed with course load, in addition to sports and extra-curricular activities (Jacobs & Dodd, 2003). These factors have the potential to lead to various amounts of sleep deprivation, and as the research of Nilsson, Sunderstrom, Karlsson et al. (2004) has shown, sleep deprivation is correlated with higher levels of fatigue, impairments in speed and accuracy as well as limitations in cognitive and physical performances. One way to cope with this fatigue that has shown to have very positive results on people of all ages is taking naps. In addition to reducing sleepiness, Milner & Cote (2008) have determined that “napping may lead to considerable benefits in terms of mood, alertness and cognitive performances”. It is these benefits that nappers seek when engaging in napping activities.
Important public policy issues have arisen in our modern 24-hour society, where it is crucial to weigh the value of sleep versus wakefulness. Scientific knowledge about sleep is currently insufficient to resolve the political and academic debates raging about how much and when people should sleep. These issues affect almost everybody, from the shift worker to the international traveler, from the physician to the policy maker, from the anthropologist to the student preparing for an exam.
Sleep is a reversible, repetitive, and active behavior which plays different roles. These roles include restoration processes, memory consolidation, learning or growth. As argued out by Curcio, Ferrara and De Gennaro (2006), during sleep, neuro-cognitive, psychological, as well as behavioral processes take place. Many individuals sacrifice their sleep with an aim of carrying out extra activities. However, sleep loss has been found to have various negative effects. Some of these effects include impairment in psychomotor, neurocognitive performances, and sleepiness (Curcio et al., 2006). Results from recent studies have demonstrated that sleep plays an integral role in memory consideration and learning processes (Deregnaucourt et al., 2005 & Curcio et al., 2006). This paper will evaluate journals and other accredited sources of information in an effort to review, analyze, critique and synthesize works of other scholars on how sleep affects learning.
Final step in being successful in college is to always maintain a healthy body. Because with all the homework and some classes cutting between our lunch times, doesn’t mean to just skip lunch. With less food is our system, this can cause us to be cranky and fatigue. Also having a proper sleep schedule is important too. Because our memories work well with sleep, so pulling an all-nighter before an exam is not a good idea. A balance diet and sleep pattern will give us more focus and
College is a time of extreme stress due to societal and parental pressures. College students have expectations they have to live up to in order to fulfill and satisfy the needs of both their parents and society. Stress is expressed through a variety of symptoms that can be hazardous to student’s physical and mental health. With such high expectations to do well during college, students may become sleep deprived, which impairs mental capacity, but sleep deprivation is only one of a vast array of symptoms. Stress is present in all aspects of life and there are multiple causes of stress, especially, during the college period which may present itself through many symptoms, but with stress, there are also various coping methods to help students deal with it.