As we are all aware, sleep is very important for humans especially us young stressed and hard working college students. Typically, doctors suggest that at least 8 hours of sleep is healthy and will keep a person functioning perfectly. According to NBC’s report on sleep, “Sleep is also the time when the body does most of its repair work; muscle tissue is rebuilt and restored. We know, for example, that growth hormone is secreted during sleep. This hormone is important for growth in children, but is also important throughout adulthood in rebuilding tissues.” Without this wonderful sleep people seem to not really be themselves. They get irritable , lethargic, lazy, and well not really themselves.
Moving away from the facts lets present the argument at hand. Are we college students really getting the sleep that we need to be completely functional? Let’s face it we have class all day, endless amounts of homework, studying, and then of course time to socialize. We have a lot on our plates. How could we possible get 8 hours of sleep into our schedules? As young adults we love social media. So when it comes time to get in bed and actually go to sleep we want to relax and surf the web; essentially keeping us up to ridiculous hours.
Even if this doesn’t sound like you, think about all of the all nighters us college students have to pull. Procrastination is very common in college students, for some reason we love to wait until the last minute. Sometimes we could go days without sleep trying to complete a project on time or to study for that final exam.
According to a study done by Brown University, 18% of college males and 30% of college females have developed insomnia while in college. When you look at it, that is a very high statistic and drives my point even further that sleep is not really a thing for students in college. Brown University also discovered that 73% of students have sleeping problems while 11% reported that they didn’t have sleeping problems. Once again a breath taking statistic that really gets us thinking.
Obviously if college students aren’t getting enough sleep this is a health problem. Should professors give a lesser work load? Should we have better time management? I personally believe better time management is the real solution to this upcoming problem amongst the young community. Many people believe drinking less caffeine and staying away from your phone before sleep will help you get a better nights rest as well.
Out of curiosity, in the comments I would be very interested in who believes we do get enough sleep and who believes that we don’t. This is a bit of a subjective topic and I would love to see all of your responses.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3076707/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/why-do-we-need-so-much-sleep/#.VDgAN1b4vwI
http://www.brown.edu/Student_Services/Health_Services/Health_Education/common_college_health_issues/sleep.php
https://www.uhs.uga.edu/sleep/
This blog post really caught my eye because I always feel tired!! Its probably because I never get enough sleep. With classes and homework I find it impossible to go to sleep before 2am! I realize that this is terrible behavior and this also will make me more stressed, irritable and will cause me to gain weight! I am going to try to get more sleep! My question is why when I rarely do get more than 8 hours of sleep iI sometimes feel even more exhausted than I did if I only got a little sleep?
Because I am the type of person that needs AT LEAST eight hours of sleep a night, I make the extra effort to go to bed as early as I can. Of course there are nights that I get less than eight hours but my body doesn’t function well the next day and sometimes even two days later. I definitely agree with you that getting eight hours of sleep a night is difficult because of everything college students have on their plates, however, pulling all nighters, for me, would be a complete waste of time. After midnight my brain shuts off. I am no longer able to fully concentrate on anything school related and have a ton of trouble retaining information. It would be pointless to try to study at 3:00 AM because my mind would be wandering and nothing would get accomplished. NBC’s report on sleep saying that it “helps the body restore” is completely accurate. When I get a good nights sleep I feel fully rested and ready for the day.
Since the first day I got here at Penn state, I never slept well…. Having a roommate for the first in my life, loud music from the next doors and people talking in hall ways disturb me from deep sleep. Although I have longer hours to sleep than high school, because my classes start later than , I still feel tiredness in the morning. For this reason, I take naps in between classes.
In addition, my sleeping habit changed from my high school, because I spend most of my time with my friends after classes. I used to sleep 11, 11:30 when I was in high school, and now I sleep like 1 or 1: 30.
I am still learning how to manage my time. Hopefully, I would not suffer from tiredness in next semester.
I found an article that talks about insomnia. It shows causes and its treatments. Here’s the link!
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/insomnia-symptoms-and-causes
Believe it or not, I get much more sleep in college than I ever did in high school. Senior year, most days I would leave my house at 7 am and I wouldn’t get home until around 10:30-11:00. And then I would have to start my homework, shower, etc. I averaged going to sleep at 12:30-1:30 am, and then waking up around 6:15. This gave me almost 6 hours on a good night, but sometimes I would only get 4. In college, my earliest class is 9:45 am so if I go to bed at a my normal time of 12:30 I don’t have to wake up until about 8:30. Now I get 8 hours.
At the beginning of the year I had been going to bed around 10:30-11:00 because my roommate likes to go to bed early, but I couldn’t sleep through the night. I was so used to getting less than 6 hours that my body couldn’t adjust to getting 10. Now I purposely stay up late so that I will hopefully avoid waking up multiple times. I’m sure I will have nights where I don’t get nearly enough sleep, but so far that hasn’t happened. I actually have more free time in college than I did in high school, so as long as a don’t procrastinate I can avoid those sleepless nights.