Introduction
It is generally understood that getting enough sleep plays an important factor as people go through their day to day lives, nevertheless many people do not rank sleep as one of their top priorities. In many cases, people prefer to use the time spent on getting the proper amount of sleep on other activities such as finishing a report for work or doing some last minute studying for a midterm. However, reducing the amount of sleep one gets not only affects one’s academic performance, but their physical health as well.
Using secondary sources from academic journals, as well as other peer-reviewed materials in the science of sleep medicine, this report outlines how academic performance and physical health is affected by chronic sleep
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However, not everyone gets the 7-9 hours of sleep they need on a regular basis. In a study done by the National Institute of Health, one-third of Americans get less than 7 hours of sleep and more than 70% of high school students are not getting enough sleep on a school night (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute 2012). Sleep deprivation is slowly becoming a global issue that the general population, especially students, are not very concerned about. This lack of concern is worrisome because sleep deprivation can have negative effects on a person’s lifestyle, especially on their physical health and their performance in …show more content…
That is because sleepiness slows down the brain’s thought process, making it difficult for students to pay attention to the material being learnt, as well as performing tasks in school. In an experiment done by Dawson and Reid, they found that sleep deprivation affects psychomotor skills in a way very similar to being intoxicated. 40 participants were repeatedly tested for hand-eye coordination at half hour intervals when sleep deprived for a 28 hour time period, and on a different day the same group of participants repeated the test while intoxicated. The results showed that being sleep deprived for 17 hours had the same effect on the participants as having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05%, and at 24 hours had the same effect of a BAC of about 0.10% (Dawson and Reid 1997). A graph correlating hours of sleep deprivation with BAC and mean relative performance can be seen in Appendix A. This experiment shows how sleep deprivation can affect a student’s ability to perform physical tasks in school, since their level of performance decreases significantly after 13 hours of being awake. If a student is expected to perform tasks requiring precise motor skills, such as doing precise measurements in a practical lab for example, they are less likely to do as well since their performance level would be impaired by lack of
Sleep loss and shifting sleep patterns are known to be widespread across college campuses throughout the United States and the world at large. Yet, while many studies exist relating sleep to performance, a much smaller amount of studies focus on the Through analysis of these sources as they would prove useful when researching and writing upon the idea of sleep and its correlation to academic performance it was found that a paper titled “Sleep-Wake Patterns and Academic Performance in University Students”, which was presented to the European Conference on Educational Research, is overall the most useful source represented to research the topic.
Another reason that causes the negative relationship between sleep deprivation and academic performance is the impact of high-stress level that is caused by sleep deprivation. As mentioned earlier, sleep deprivation could decrease a student’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills. However, it can also make the students feel more stressful. According to the survey conducted in Ball State campus, there are 15 students that often do their homework before they go to bed. 10 students play video games, computer games, and mobile games before they go to sleep. 8 students use their electronic devices to do social activities. 5 students watch movies and television series and 2 students read books before they go to bed. This information proves
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
The public health problem that I am addressing is the lack of sleep. The target population will be adolescents and college students in America. Sleep is important to health because the timing, quality, and duration are essential. Sleep plays a big role in good health and well-being throughout your life. How you feel when you are awake comes from how well you slept at night. Sleep has a direct correlation with metabolic regulation, emotional regulation, performance, memory consolidation, learning, and brain recuperation process. Because of these factors it should be viewed as just as important
Sleep is one of our basic needs to survive and to function in day to day operations, but not everyone needs the same amount of sleep. Some people can survive on very little sleep, i.e. five hours a night, and some people need a lot of sleep, to the extend that they are sleeping up to 10 to sometimes 15 hours a night (Nature, 2005). According to Wilson (2005) the general rule states that most people need from seven to eight hours of sleep. The deprivation of sleep in our society in continually increasing with the demands in society increasing work loads, the myth that a few hours of sleep is only necessary to function properly and that sleep is sometimes considered as killing time (Nature, 2005). Sometimes sleep deprivation is also caused by other situations like sleep disorders, i.e. sleep apnea, chronic insomnia or medical conditions such as stress (Wilson, 2005).
My physical health is the dimension I’ve chosen that requires a beneficial change. Within this dimension, changing my sleeping habits is my main goal. According to Hershner and Chervin (2014), irregular sleep patterns and sleepiness have a negative impact on a student’s performance, memory, and on their ability to learn
Researchers have found a way to connect sleep with education. Gary Scarpello who wrote "Lack Of Sleep Could Be Trouble For CTE Students” , did a research study with liberty mutual showed that teens had an average of 7.2 hours of sleep on school nights and 33 to 75 % of all students have sleep problems. In the article it had stated that not getting enough sleep can cause impaired hand eyed coordination, reaction time and brief mental lapses. (Scarpello). The same researchers also found out that Sleep helps restores brain functions such as alertness, metabolism, and memory and regulate hormones (Scarpello). Researchers Mary A. Carskardon and A.R. Wolfson studied 3,120 Rhode Island children. They had figured out that college students who slept more than nine hours a night had a gr...
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.
Carpenter, S. (n.d.). Sleep deprivation may be undermining teen health. http://www.apa.org. Retrieved March 6, 2014, from http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct01/sleepteen.aspx
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 has always been a popular subject among humans. There have been many studies that examine sleep and its correlation with a wide variety of variables, such as depression, energy levels, and grades. Students, as a group, are widely studied. As the world’s future leaders and thinkers, there is great importance placed on their achievements. In this study the effect of student sleep habits on perceived academic performance is investigated. Many things may affect students’ academic success among these variables are sleep habits.
Sleep is a very important factor in the human function. Our body and brain is able to reset itself and rejuvenate while we sleep. When we do not get the required amount of sleep, we start to feel lethargic and foggy minded, because our mind and body wasn’t able to replenish itself. Sleep is imperative that an insignificant rest deficiency or lack of sleep can affect our ability to remember things; decisions and can affect our temperament. Chronic sleep deficiency can get the body to feel agitated and it could lead to serious health problems such as, heart problems, stress, acne, and obesity.
In this paragraph, I will elucidate on how sleep deprivation is associated with low academic performance, poor health, depression, mood disorders and drowsy driving in adolescents. I will substantiate my argument using statistics and studies, performed by researchers in my sources. I will also be defining cardinal terms such as circadian rhythms, sleep deprivation and neurocognitive functioning. Finally, I will present my thesis statement and introduce academic performance and health effects of sleep deprivation as the two
Sleep has a very important role in a person’s physical health and wellbeing, yet in the U.S., only 56% of Americans get recommended amount of sleep. The average sleep requirement for students in college is around 8 hours. If students don’t reach that amount, they have created a sleep debt. A sleep debt is when all lost sleep accumulates to create a larger sleep indebtedness. The sleep debt does not disappear or decline; you can only reduce your debt by obtaining extra sleep above the daily requirement.
Wells, M., & Vaughn, B. V. (2012). Poor Sleep Challenging the Health of a Nation. Neurodiagnostic Journal,52(3), 233-249.