The Pros And Cons Of Sleep Deprivation

2134 Words5 Pages

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.
Furthermore, there are clear distinctions in the type of naps that are commonly used. Some people may choose to nap to replace lost sleeping time, which is referred to as “replacement napping”, others may want to prepare for an extended period of wakefulness by napping, which is also known as “prophylactic napping”, and a third motivation to nap is described as appetitive napping, when a person naps for pure enjoyment of falling asleep (Milner & Cote, 2008). These three types of naps could apply to the subject of this particular study, which is a college student. College students are subject the enormous amounts of stress and pressure from parents and teacher to get all their work done, perform in the classroom, obtain good grades, etc… and they form a group that could profit largely from napping.
According to the research of Wong et al. (2008) on the eff...

... middle of paper ...

...ions outside of the experiment, and other variables such as levels of tiredness and periods of time available to engage in napping.
Conclusion

In conclusion, the moderately enhanced results leads to think that the naps did have positive effects on all three test results, but not to the extend that was hypothesized. Perhaps a more ordered and organized napping and sleep schedule would allow for greater and more significant improvements. A further analysis in the domain of effects of napping on performance, either cognitive or physical, should strive to measure the impact of tightly arranged schedule to allow for naps to occur at relatively the same time everyday, as well as having a similar length, paired with comparable amount of sleep the night prior to engaging in napping. This would allow assessing the true effects of naps on an individual much more effectively.

More about The Pros And Cons Of Sleep Deprivation

Open Document