The Effect Of Sleep On Undergraduate Academic Performance

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

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?

To conclude, we can see how not only does more sleep make us prepared and more focused for the school day, but how it also affects our positive sleeping patterns, our ability to learn, and the amount of stress that our bodies receive. We see how many liable resources were used to conclude that sleep truly is one of the most important factors in a student's everyday life and supports the idea that school should begin later for the most positive results. Starting school later will truly minimize bad sleep patterns and habits, increase the amount of learning and lastly, put less stress on our minds and

Sleep affects grades in more ways than one or two or even three. It affect how people feel, think, and act (Gruber,2013). This states that people that have less sleep behave differently than people that get the recommended amount of sleep for their age.They may be more likely to have mistakes in a class or job. They might even act different than they usually do. Sleep also has an affect of no motivation or effort in the work they do (Gruber,2013). This is important because this tells that the person that does not get enough sleep does not have much motivation or effort they put in to the work they perform.People with motivation tend to do things better than people that have none.

An article in Nature Neuroscience from February 2009 describes an experiment which was conducted regarding sleep and its correlation to memory. Memory was impaired after 35 hours of sleep deprivation weekly and constant shallow sleep. Regular sleep benefits memory as newly stored information is easily encoded. Proper sleep is crucial for processing and retaining new information. Those who suffer from sleep deprivation struggle to maintain new information and with comprehension skills. In order for students to maximize their learning capabilities, they need the proper sleep to be mentally prepared for

One of the reasons that school should start later is because studies show that you need 8 or more hours for your brain to be fully alert. It is quite evident that mental functions and learning are the primary victims of not getting a good night sleep. Scientists have for long suspected that the main function of sleep is related to learning and memory. However, only recent decades and years brought an exponential increase in evidence demonstrating the role of sleep in memory.

This source was produced by The Media Production Group at Dartmouth and Dr. Carl P. Thum, Director of the Dartmouth Academic Skills Center. Carl Thum himself works with students at Dartmouth University in which he provides coaching for students suffering from ADD and also leads various workshops, mini-courses, and coaching sessions for students as well. In this video, several students and faculty members are interviewed on the relationship between sleep and being a college student. In the various interviews, the students admit to the struggles they have in being able to function when suffering from sleep deprivation and how severely the lives are affected from it. The faculty members themselves admit to the several instances in which they have witnessed students suffer as a result of sleep deprivation in their testimonials. I will be incorporating this video to indicate the varying degrees at which sleep deprivation can affect students and will include quotes from other students in this video in order to create more relatability for the reader when hearing from students besides myself and how they have learned to address sleep.

One of the many arising problems of America’s students is they are becoming sleep deprived. The busy daily schedules of children and teens are not allowing them to get enough sleep. “Less sleep is unhealthy especially with the new research that as teenagers move through teenage years, they need increasing amounts of sleep. Nine hours per night is the necessary amount to avoid behaviors associated with sleep deprivation” (Final Report Summary, 2001). Among other things, sleep deprivation is causing students to sleep during class instead of being awake and aware. When the students are sleeping in class, they are not retaining information being taught to them. Researchers have now proven that

The students could rate their current mood on a scale from zero to seven. The higher the

Sleep is essential for optimal human function. In fact, a lack of sleep can actually affect important cognitive functions, like memory. A 2007 study added to the already substantial evidence that even acute total sleep deprivation impairs attentiveness, working memory, and reaction time in various tasks (Alhola, Polo-Kantola). One such way to further this investigation of the effects of sleep deprivation on memory is through the Memory Interference Test, or MIT. MIT is a program designed by Gaston Pfluegl, Ph.D., and Enrique Lopez, Psy. D., at UCLA to test the memory of students. Along with a memory test, the MIT also anonymously collected the physical states, mental states, and demographics of each student test subject, providing a substantial database through which students can test hypotheses, such as the connection between sleep deprivation and memory. Since the MIT requires short-term memory recall, the hours of sleep a student had before taking the test could have a noticeable effect on his or her performance. An unprecedented study this year found that sleep deprivation may actually even induce false memories, which would certainly impact a student taking the MIT because the test requires the subject to recognize images that have been previously presented to them (Frenda, et al). The hypothesis is that students who slept 8 hours before the test will perform better on the MIT than students who only slept 4 hours. The null hypothesis is that students who had adequate

“Students who described themselves as struggling or failing school (C's, D's/F's) reported that on school nights they obtain about 25 min less sleep and go to bed an average of 40 min later than A and B students, ps < .001. In addition, students with worse grades reported greater weekend delays of sleep schedule than did those with better grades.” (Wolfson, Carskadon, pg.1). Because some students go to bed later, it results in them having worse grades. Whereas students who go to bed earlier tend to have A’s or

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).

When adolescents receive an adequate amount of sleep, their memory improves substantially, leading them to perform better on school assignments such as projects, quizzes, and tests. Furthermore, when youngsters are able to follow their natural sleep clocks, their brains are more likely to understand and comprehend material that is taught to them during class, which will result in them receiving higher grades on assignments. A study conducted at Harvard University showed that adolescents who received at least eight and a half hours of sleep were fifty percent more likely to earn all A’s during the school year than teenagers who only received around six to seven hours of sleep. Therefore, delaying school start times will allow teenagers to show their true academic potential. Even though some people may argue that high school start times do not need to be delayed in order for students to perform well in school, adolescents are more likely to be determined to work hard and obtain better grades when they sleep sufficiently. In addition to the drastic improvement on school performance, students will also be more engaged in their education with later start

Importance of Sleep It has been proposed, by some, that humans do not really need to sleep, and that we do so only out of habit. However, much research would suggest otherwise. It is true that some individuals (e.g. those suffering from insomnia) are able to live on very small amounts of sleep, but nevertheless, they do need some. Studies of sleep deprivation have found that there may be severe consequences of not sleeping at. Randy Gardner, for example, went without sleep for 11 nights.

Rumination and anxiety mediate the effect of loneliness on depressed mood and sleep quality in college students