The Importance Of Social And Social Activities On Sleep

One-hundred and fifty undergraduate students will be recruited from the University of Dayton’s participant pool for this study. There will be no exclusionary criteria for participation.

In the study, the between-groups design and the cross-sectional design were used for research. There were 243 participants between the ages of 18 and 39, and the majority were females and Caucasians. The average age was about 21 years old.

Within the study, the demographics of the participants were made available, including gender, age, race and ethnicity, marital status, and educational and employment status. Special consideration and statistical analysis was conducted for those in the High

Late to bed, early to rise—this epigram sums up the dangerously unhealthy relationship Americans have with sleep. It is absurd that society treats chronically missing sleep, one of the biggest risks to mental health that humans face, as nothing more than a minor issue. Unfortunately, the problem is so prevalent that few want to acknowledge its consequences. Because of early shifts and commitments in the morning, and extra work or late shifts at night, a minority of people have the luxury of being able to sleep ad libitum every night. I have experienced this first-hand; with high school taking up my morning and afternoon, and a part-time job taking up my evening, I am left with a narrow strip of time from about 10pm to 6am during which I need to get schoolwork done and somehow find time to sleep.

Approximately 150 White Americans (75 men, 75 women) will be recruited through UW-Oshkosh’s undergraduate psychology participant pool. The participants themselves will choose to participate in the experiment, which will be posted on SONA. The only exclusion criteria are that the individuals be at least 18 years old and of white ethnicity. Participants will be compensated one credit hour for participation in the experiment.

Participant included in this study were 24 university students (50% females), recruited from introductory psychology and health courses at Edith Cowan University. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 45 years (M= 30.95; SD= 8.60). The students volunteered when asked by the experimenters during class lectures.

Being sleep deprived can also affect driving, can affect performance in school, and can lead to illness (Iarovici, 2014, p. 32). Social activities in college contribute to sleep problems, for example, drug use and heavy alcohol drinking (Iarovici, 2014, p. 32). However, sleep problems are not only caused by unhealthy lifestyles. Sleep problems during college years, a major time of development, can be a sign of mental illness such as depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder (Iarovici, 2014, p. 40). However, there are students who try have tried everything to fall asleep (e.g., not drink alcohol or caffeinated drinks) and they still experience sleeping problems. Some people have genes that cause them to be more alert during the night than in the morning, and others have delayed sleep syndrome, in which circadian rhythms are abnormal (Iarovici, 2014, p. 42). Delayed sleep syndrome is more common in young adults and interestingly, people obtain enough sleep, but they tend to fall asleep during the early morning than during the night (Iarovici, 2014, p. 42). Even though the individual may be getting eight hours of sleep, such a shift in sleeping time can lead to individuals feeling depressed because they cannot enjoy the activities others enjoy during the day, and can lead to individuals having

There were 135 participants in this study; 57 were male (43%) and 77 were female (57%), and one participant did not report gender. Participants age ranged from 16 to 60 (M = 24.08, SD = 7.84). This sample consisted of 77% Hispanic (N = 104), 11% Caucasian (N = 15), 5% African American (N = 7), 4% Asian (N = 6), and 2% who reported another ethnicity (N = 3).

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).

Many individuals in our society struggle from lack of sleep from various different problems. In order to understand the reason why this is a problem I examined the circadian clock and how Melatonin fits in the natural “day/night” cycle and affects human sleeping patterns. Various studies using individuals with either insomnia, stressed college students or a history of sleep disorders measured the initial sleep disturbance patterns. The researchers performed double blind studies with both placebo and Melatonin in order to determine whether an external source of Melatonin helped with sleeping patterns to follow

The amount of sleep a person gets each night affects the mental and emotional sides of the human body as well. Lack of sleep will increase the risk of depression and other serious mental problems. Most of these problems could be solved with just a few extra hours of sleep. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that a good amount of sleep for an active student is between 9-10 hours. (Walker 1) Mary Carskadon, PhD, listed just a few out of the many benefits to gaining more sleep, them being reduced likelihood of absenteeism and tardiness, receiving better grades, and having less of a risk of metabolic and nutritional deficits like obesity. Carskadon is the director of the Chronobiology and Sleep Research Laboratory at the Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island, and she is also a Professor for the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University School of Medicine. (National Sleep Foundation 2) A couple times out of the year, I will be tardy to my first hour class for accidentally sleeping through my alarm because my body naturally doesn’t wake up for two or more hours. It is a common problem for other students at my school as well. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement collected data that states that “more than 9,000 students at eight high schools in Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming and found that shifting the school day later in the morning resulted in a boost in attendance, test scores, and grades in math, English, science, and social studies.” (Richmond

A person who is known as a night owl has a circadian phase sleep disorder known as Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome/Disorder (DSPS), this is when the person falls asleep “2-6 hours later relative to desired and socially conventional rise times”. This condition leads to societal and health disadvantages, resulting from inadequate amount of hours spent sleeping. With chronic inadequate sleep, DSPS can lead to weight gain, depression, anxiety disorders, diabetes, heart disease; however given the right environment a person can live with DSPS without ill effects. (3)

The majority of correlational designs are cross-sectional, which demonstrate associations between variables but they do not enable comprehensive explanations of the findings (Fallone, Acebo, Carskadon & Seifer, 2005). Longitudinal studies, on the other hand, have allowed more long-term trends to be established between sleep disturbances and behaviour. However, without experimental manipulation that controls for confounding variables, definitive causal relationships cannot be inferred. A longitudinal study by Fredriksen, Reddy, Rhodes and Way (2004) assessed children across three years during middle school in order to investigate the developmental changes of sleep patterns and its possible links with academic grades and internalising behaviours. This study revealed that less sleep over time was associated with lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depressive symptoms. This study relied on self-report, which enabled a large sample of individuals to be investigated, however the results may be at risk of response bias. Although this study could not determine cause and effect, the authors used an analytical process called cross-domain modelling, which meant that the associative findings were deemed to be relatively accurate (Fredriksen et al., 2004). Longitudinal research suggests that there is a long-term association between sleep disturbance and social functioning.

All subjects were male college student within the Stanford area. Most were middle-class Caucasians, who had never met one another prior to the study. The subjects were given a psychological test the day prior to the study to prevent any bias that could occur.

A convenience sample of 40 participants (20 women, 20 men) was used as part of this study. These participants varied from the ages 18-45, in which both groups when combined had an average age of (M=28.45). Demographics for all participants were based on age, sex, and ethnicity. Participants were tested in two different groups in which there were 20 subjects in each group. Ten females and ten males participated in one group and the other ten males and ten females were put into the second groups.