Written by Lauren Young
Image by Jess Foami from Pixabay
Sleep is an essential part of human nature and function, but in intense settings like a college university, it is often sacrificed because of the multitude of activities thrown upon the student. Walking onto campus, I see crowds of students either falling in line to Starbucks to get their daily dose of caffeine or knocked out on the study tables at the library. College students are one of the most sleep deprived groups of people, with an average of six to seven hours of sleep a night, as opposed to the recommended eight hours. This lack of sleep can affect many areas of our lives such as our health, mood, and academic performance.
Our health may be sacrificed in terms of being more susceptible to getting sick because the lack of sleep can lower our immune system. Furthermore, it can lead to weight gain because it triggers a hormone known as ghrelin that causes cravings for high calorie foods. This can eventually contribute to the increasing rates of obesity. Sleep deprivation can also cause fatigue, leading one to feel tired from doing even simple everyday activities. Subsequently, it can affect our mood negatively by creating unnecessary stress and anxiety, eventually burdening the relationships we have with other people by inhibiting our ability to listen or even enjoy leisure activities.
Based on collected data from a health survey administered by University of Georgia, approximately 25% of college students in particular believed that their lack of sleep had a major effect on their academic performance because it caused a difficulty for students to concentrate and stay alert. Furthermore, sleep deprivation can affect learning and memory. With the right amount of sleep, glucose metabolism increases, thus improving mental activity. Based on a Harvard University research, researchers tested a control group and treated “nap group” on texture discrimination and concluded that nap-dependent learning had a 9.7ms improvement during differentiation. This suggested that the treatment of a 90 minute midday nap not only improves upon, but is also directly concentrated in, the primary visual cortex.
If you are unable to achieve the required amount of sleep within one night, napping is a useful method. There are different increments of nap time that can achieve various types of benefits. Even twenty minute naps give a burst of alertness and increased motor performance. Napping can help improve skills such as typing and playing an instrument. A 30-60 minute nap allows for slow wave sleep, which improves memorization skills like studying notes. A 60-90 minute nap achieves REM, rapid eye movement, and is the deepest form of sleep that benefits in creativity and critical thinking. In total, the amount of sleep one gets is crucial in functioning and maintaining wellbeing in terms of physical and mental health. The phrase “sleep is for the weak” fails to hold true because in actuality, sleep is for the strong minded and strong hearted.
References:
1. Sleep Rocks!…get more of it. University Health Center.
2. Jennifer Soong. The Secret (and Surprising) Power of Naps. Health Balance.
3. Medneck, Sara and Ken Nakayama. 2003. Sleepdependent Learning: A Nap is as Good as a Night. Nature Neuroscience. 6, 697698.