Sleep Deprivation On College Students

sleep is essential for our health and wellbeing. It allows our body to rejuvenate and restore itself. It helps the body to create new cells. Sleep deprivation is one of the biggest causes of premature aging. Tiredness can significantly affect your mood and how you feel. Sleep can help lower blood pressure and elevated levels of stress hormones. Your cardiovascular system is constantly under pressure and sleep helps to reduce the levels of stress and inflammation in your body. High levels of "inflammatory markers" are linked to heart disease and strokes. Sleep can also help keep blood pressure and cholesterol levels (which

Sleep, diet and regular exercise are all part of a healthy lifestyle, and a lack of sleep or exercise can contribute to increasing stress levels. According to the University Health Centre at the University of Georgia, adults need at least six to ten hours sleep per night (University Health Center, n.d.). Sleep also facilitates learning and memory “During sleep, the brain organizes, sorts, and stores what we have learned and experienced that day, making it easier to recall at a later time.” (University Health Center, n.d.) A lack of sleep can result in a decreased academic performance and increased mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. (University Health Center, n.d.). Prior to this knowledge I was going to sleep in the early hours of the morning resulting in little sleep. After changing my sleeping pattern, I have felt more rested and less fatigued throughout the day meaning I can focus more clearly on studying and learning. This is evidence that a healthy body and a well-rested mind increases can help increase and maintain better academic

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

In today’s society, many people go through many days yawning, fighting to stay awake and indulging in many cups of coffee. If you were to ask them what the cause of their restlessness was, the popular statement would be a lack of sleep. However, most would not dare to think that a lack of sleep could cause multiple issues in everyday life. This problem has been seen to peak during the good ole college days. It is hard to imagine that those days of all-night cramming sessions and those late nights partying causing students to be sleep deprived could lead to a variety of problems like stress, long term insomnia, and a weakened immune system.

Sleep problems have become an epidemic throughout the United States affecting nearly two-thirds of American adults, including the college population (Becker, 2008). A recent poll by the National Sleep Foundation determined that over half of this population describes their sleep habits as poor (Becker, 2008). Poor sleep quality for the college population has been linked to higher levels of stress, depression, anxiety disorders, and poor academic achievement (Becker, 2008). Having a prolonged feeling of stress and exhaustion can have detrimental effects on a college student’s confidence and abilities. When a college student becomes more interested in where they can fit in time to sleep throughout their day as opposed to upcoming assignments, school performance can be negatively affected. Without an adequate night's sleep, college students are likely to have impaired cognitive functioning and as a result fall behind in school work (Mayo Clinic, 2014).

Lack of sleep can affect the ability to function in academic environments by impairing the ability to learn, listen, and solve problems. Insufficient amounts of sleep have been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-tasking behaviors. "During sleep, important body functions and brain activity occur. Skipping sleep can be harmful or even deadly, especially if you are behind the wheel. You can look bad, you may feel moody, and you perform poorly. Sleepiness can make it hard to get along with your family and friends and hurt your scores on school exams, on the court or on the field." (Teens and Sleep 1) During sleep the body repairs muscles and tendons, releases hormones to regulate growth and appetite, restores energy, and contributes to a healthy immune system. Sleep is linked with the repair of the heart and blood vessels and sleep deficiency after long periods of time can be linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke. Not getting enough sleep can affect an individuals mood, energy, health, and even their ability to handle stress. Studies show that not getting the recommended amount of sleep can be linked to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems. If today's teenagers and adults that sleep less than seven hours a night aren't getting enough sleep, then

Thesis Statement: When the projects, exams, and extra-curricular activities start to pile up on one another it seems as though there is not enough time in the day.  This is when college students tend to lose precious hours of sleep and the consequences can be costly.

College students are one of the population who suffer most from sleep deprivation, some of the factors that cause this is, staying up late and having an eight am class the next day, having a lot of distractions around him or her like a social life, family, and personal issues. Another factor can be them not understanding what’s going on in classroom so they gradually stop showing up. There are so many more factors that can cause a student to be sleep deprived, and because of it, it has caused serious negative consequences to their health, grades, attendance, some come to the point of having to drop classes.

Almost every student strives to get an “A,” but does this have adverse effects on their health? Two preeminent sources of these effects can easily be observed when evaluating the lives of teenage students: sleep and stress. Insufficient sleep regularly leads to an excess of stress while, similarly, and excess of stress can lead to insufficient sleep. The two seemingly interwoven occurrences have both been proven to effect both physical and mental health negatively. The American Psychological Association reports, from studies done in 2013, that “teens who sleep fewer than eight hours per school night, many say their stress level has increased over the past year (42 percent), compared with 23 percent of teens who sleep at least eight hours per school night” (“Stress and Sleep”). From this statistical data, it can be inferred that stress level and amount of sleep have an impact, generally adversely.

Insufficient and irregular sleep has been rated the top impediment to college students’ academic performance (Ye, Johnson, Keane, Manasia, Gregas, 2015). Although it is documented that for centuries students’ academic performance has been negatively affected by sleep disturbance, college students continue to have irregular sleep schedule and undergo self-imposed sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation in college-age students tend to occur for multiple different reasons. Some of the factors that affect college students’ sleeping habits include late-night activities, work overload, noisy living conditions, inconsistently early-morning classes, and circadian rhythm imbalance (Bubolz et al, 2009). While some of these reasons are physiological, the behavioral components is extremely problematic on college campuses (Hershner, Chervin, 2014). This section will examine some of the causes of total and partial sleep deprivation as it relates to some common behaviors of college students.

It is believed that when sleeping the brain start a process where it recovers and heal from daily use therefore, this can be an explanation for why the amount of sleep has a direct correlation of how well a teen performs in school. Various studies have been done to find a possible relation between sleep and academic performance for example the study in Korea Healthcare Technology in 2009, where they studied teens school performance who suffered from “insufficient sleep”, the experiment consisted of a total of 101 students 51 with BISS (Behaviorally insufficient sleep syndrome) and 50 without the BISS based of ESS(Epworth sleepiness Scale) “ Participants reported their academic performance in the form of class quartile ranking. The Korean version of the Composite Scale (KtCS) for morningness/eveningness, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) for depression, and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-II (BIS-II) for impulsivity were administered” ( Sitemap. n.d ). Their results concluded that BISS students (sleep deprived students) have a lower academic performance with additional side effects such as depression, panic attacks etc. Another study done to view the effects of sleep deprivation on academic performance was done on a population of pharmacist’s students in at the university of Auburn Harrison School of Pharmacy where “Questionnaires were completed by 364 student pharmacists (79.4% response rate and 93.8% cooperation rate). More than half of student pharmacists

Sleep is an incredibly important physiological action that functions as a period of growth, repair, rest, and relaxation for the human body (“Sleep,” 2015). As a population, college students are notorious for their skewed sleep patterns and their overall lack of getting the sufficient number of hours of sleep they need to perform optimally in school. Cramming the night before exams by pulling an “all-nighter” as well as the overall excessive number of distractions that present themselves with college life seem to interfere with students’ sleep. Sleep deprivation appears to be coupled with college students, and research studies have presented statistics that support this generalization. In an article published through the University of Michigan, fifty percent of students said that they were sleepy during the day and seventy percent of students said they did not get an adequate amount of sleep at night (Hershner & Chervin, 2014). Specifically, it appears that nursing students suffer from sleep deprivation, correlated with stressors linked to clinical practice and the rigorous nature of nursing programs (Ticona Benavente, Marques de Silva, Baraldi Higashi, de Azevedo Guido, & Siqueira Costa, 2014). In this paper, I will discuss the causes and effects of sleep deprivation, with a focus on how sleep deprivation relates to nursing students, and then present some nursing interventions that could be utilized for this problem.

An adequate amount of sleep is essential for human living. Just like water and food, humans must sleep in order to have full cognitive function throughout the day (NIH, 2017. Sleep deprivation occurs when a person has the lack of sufficient amount of sleep (NIH, 2017). Sleep deprivation can occur in anyone, however, college students and teens are more likely to be deprived (NIH, 2017; University of Georgia, n.d). According to Dr.Olsen from the Mayo Clinic, seven to eight hours is a good amount of sleep per night; however, only 20% of American adolescents are sleeping the recommended amount (Winsler, Dautsch, Vorona, Payne, & Szklo-Coxe, 2014). High school students in Fairfax County report sleeping 6 hours and 30 minutes per night on average and middle school students sleep 7 hours and 30 minutes on average (Winsler et al., 2014). In Fairfax County, 3.4 % of students get the recommended 9 hours of sleep (Winsler et al., 2014).

Most people think of sleep as a time for our bodies to shut down and take a break. This is not necessarily true, according to the Sleep Foundation, sleep is “an active period in which a lot of important processing, restoration and strengthening occurs” (Why Do We). Sleep is a necessity for our bodies so we can regenerate cells and produce disease fighting agents that help protect us from illnesses. Not only can sleeping help you from getting sick, it can help aide in the regrowth of muscle and skin tissues. A good night's sleep may also allow us to solidify our memories and thoughts, it is a time for our brains to recollect and remember what we did throughout the

It is not unheard of for college students to pull all nighters, cram for exams, and run on coffee. Many would assume something that occurs so often, cannot possibly be bad for your overall health. Sleep deprivation affects many college students, especially when they have increasingly higher standards and expectations. Sleep deprivation is defined as a situation or condition of suffering from a lack of sleep (Sleep Deprivation, n.d.). Between balancing school, work, and social lives, it is easy to see how college students can have difficulty avoiding sleep deprivation. While college students in general often suffer from sleep deprivation, college athletes may be affected more so than the average student.