Comparing Two Articles on Sleep Deprivation Essay

Are you tired and having trouble paying attention in class? Focusing on tasks at hand? Or just completely being overall unproductive? The average college student is deprived at least two full hours asleep each night according to “College Tidbits” a website designed to promote healthy lifestyles and productivity in daily college life. These results were pooled from multiple surveys done over hundreds of campuses throughout the United States. Today, I hope to persuade you to fight the statistics and get those extra two hours of sleep. Do what it takes to get the full seven to nine hours that is suggested by the Mayo Clinic. I will discuss two problems. Why college students are not

As a student advances through school, they tend to have much more on their hands such as a job, social life, family, and homework. The demand of time from students’ hectic lives makes it difficult to fit in adequate sleep. The only way to complete everything on their agenda is to sacrifice some of their nightly sleep, thus becoming chronically sleep deprived. Students who are sleep deprived or receive less than the recommended amount of seven hours of sleep daily, are less likely to succeed academically because it slows down cognitive performance and impairs memory, which affects a student’s ability to learn.

A common problem in many young adults in college is sleep deprivation. College students are some of the most sleep deprived people. Their sleep hygiene behavior is worse than adults. An adequate amount of sleep time is 7 to 8 hours each night to complete a regular sleep cycle. When college students have less sleep time, they are disturbing their sleeping cycle and their bodies respond by decreasing their ability to concentrate on tasks. Sleep deprivation can affect your everyday life in many different ways. For instances, it can decrease your physical health, mental health, and academic performance. The following articles will be focusing on

There are a few factors that are essential for life such as breathing or eating, but one of the most essential factor is sleep. Even though the amount of sleep people need differs from one individual to another, the fact is that eventually everyone needs to sleep. People know the importance of sleep, but due to the increased workload and the pressure of society people are getting less sleep. As a result, there has been an increase interest on the effects lack of sleep has on the mind especially the memory of a person. Many questions arose about the relationship between sleep and memory due to the fact most high school and college students have become sleep deprived. For example, does more sleep mean higher grades?

In Frank Bruni’s editorial, “Today’s Exhausted Superkids,” he talks about the lack of sleep present in many high school and college students. He attributes this loss in sleep to a variety of factors; although he seems to place the blame mainly on education. He blames the stress of getting good grades on the widespread lack of sleep. Throughout his article, Bruni used many studies and other writings to support his points.

Sleep deprivation is a serious concern among college students, who are "among the most sleep-deprived age group in the United States," (Central Michigan University, 2008). It is important to study the causes of sleep deprivation, or sleep disorders, among college students. According to Park (2009), "dozens of studies have linked an increase in nightly sleep to better cognition and alertness." A study by Central Michigan University (2008) found that sleep deprivation can lead to poor academic performance, impaired driving, depression, and behavioral problems. There are several variables that may affect sleeping patterns among college students. One is genetics or biological issues. It is highly

National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (2012) stated that the recommended amount of sleep for adults is 7-8 hours a day. However , personally my weekday’s sleeping hours is approximately 5.5 hours everyday. Sleep Deprivation may trigger mood disturbance like depression and anxiety , decrease in academic performance due to reducing memory and concentration and increase calorie consumption (Trockel, Barnes, & Egget, 2000).Moreover , the release of cortisol can depress the immune system which make oneself more vulnerable to illness like cold or fever and the increase of upper respiratory infections like headaches can also be seen in university student with sleep deprivation(Irwin, 2002). Importantly, more health consequences of sleep deprivation such as greater use of marijuana , smoking and alcohol abuse are germane to university students (Kloss et al., 2016).

Success in life is typically measured by the result of what is accomplished during the waking hours. The degree of effectiveness of those hours however, depend on effective rest. “Sleep is integral to the health and well-being of all people” (Wells 233). Sleep is simply defined as the body’s rest cycle – a time to recharge. The widely accepted metric for normal or sufficient sleep is about 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. When this metric is not met, either through total sleep loss or accumulated sleep debt, the effect can be dire, “Sleep deprivation results in poor memorizing, schematic thinking, which yields wrong decisions, and emotional disturbances such as deteriorated interpersonal responses and increased aggressiveness” (Orzeł-Gryglewska 95). Sleep deprivation hinders the abilities of the mind, harms the body, and shortens length of life.

In the article “Today’s Exhausted Superkids,”Frank Bruni makes many valid, controversial points. More than half American teenagers say they are getting less than seven hours of sleep. This is all due either to the amount of homework assigned each night, or all the times students get distracted while attempting to finish the work. In many classes, students must prepare themselves for all the extra work they will be doing. Various problems are associated with the one considerable topic: sleep deprivation. Several different factors can lead to shorter hours of sleep during the night.

Obesity is a deadly and horrible disease; however, it can be prevented. Physical activity is the “cure” to the obesity epidemic. Obesity is the result of “‘caloric imbalance’ -- too few calories expended for the amount of calories consumed” according to Childhood Obesity Facts. Physical activity burns off a majority of the excess calories one may have. PE classes do an efficient job of getting students physically active without overworking them, or taking away from freetime after school. Therefore HCSD should keep the current physical education requirements and not replace it with sports.

Later classes lead to better grades. Students who said they got poor grades reported getting twenty-five minutes less sleep a night and going to bed an average forty minutes later than kids with good grades did. Cognitive function and psychomotor skills are closely related to sleep, and numerous studies have correlated sleep loss with significant decreases in children and adolescents’ performance (Wolfson 1). Studies of middle school and high school students reported that more sleep, earlier bedtimes, later weekday rise times, and less daytime sleepiness were associated with better grades in school and greater motivation to do one’s best in school (Wolfson 2).

One aspect of this research also included how sleep deprivation can affect academic performance. It is has been proven many times and with a variety of studies that sleep deprivation negatively impacts academic performance. The implication is that if these students are staying up later, their grades should be suffering. There are direct connections between rapid eye

At MIT, conversations like this are commonplace. I find it astounding that at one of the finest institutions of higher education in the world, home to some of the most brilliant students I have ever encountered, sleep is regarded as optional. We are a school of science and technology. Here, facts and logic reign supreme. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence pointing toward the necessity of healthy sleep, students are hitting the sack for far less time than is considered healthy for a typical 18-22 year old.

Weaver from Oklahoma State University. According to the authors “the purpose of the present study was to determine if sleep deprivation and/or poor sleep quality in a sample of non-depressed university students was associated with lower academic performance” (Gilbert, Cameron. 295). The study was also made to determine the relationship between sleep deprivation, sleep quality, and academic performance (Gilbert, Cameron. 298). It was hypothesized that by the end of the study, participants who had higher levels of sleep deprivation and poorer sleep quality would have lower academic performance (as indicated by grade point average [GPA] and course incompletions—drops, withdrawals, and incompletes) than participants with little sleep deprivation and good sleep quality (Gilbert, Cameron. 298). By the end of the study, the authors discussed the results in the following narration:

Sleep deprivation is the most widely recognized rest issue in America and College Students. Understudies dropout rate and instructional level is dropping in the fact that they don't get much rest. Rest is vital to our wellbeing, yet its influencing understudy's wellbeing the most. Being a college student we don’t have our personal alarm clock anymore, so we tend to oversleep or don’t sleep at all. I can affirm on the grounds that being all alone I have this same issue. I hear and see the influence it has on understudies day by day and at times battle with it myself. Sleep Deprivation is created by society's weights to succeed, which prompts numerous ailments and reductions in scholarly accomplishment in undergrads.