We’ve all experienced sleep deprivation throughout our time as a student and if you’re like me, you’ve experienced this quite a bit. When I don’t get enough sleep I find myself in a groggy state of mind that impacts my entire day. I would have never guessed that losing sleep could potentially dramatically impact my health.

A recent study suggests that sleep can impact your heart health. Researchers first began their study by looking at data from another study. This study had more than 4,000 ninth graders complete a survey asking about the participant’s sleep duration, quality, disturbances, sleepiness during the day, drugs to help them aid them in sleeping, physical activity, and computer/TV time. The participants also had their height, weight, waist circumferences, cholesterol, and blood pressure measures. The survey found those students on average slept 7.9 hours on school nights, and 9.4 on weekends, in comparison to the recommended 9 hours of sleep. Nearly 20% of participants reported their school night sleep habits as poor, 10% slept poorly on the weekend, and 6% use medicine to help them sleep. The same students that sleep poorly also claimed to consume more soft drinks, fried food, sweets, and caffeine. Sleep deprived students also exercised less. The conclusion of the study was that poor sleep can make your daily life less qualitative.

I thought that the study was well conducted. There were nearly 4,000 participants in the study, which meant that the study was large enough to where students previous health predispositions were randomized enough. The surveys also proved that students amount of sleep directly correlates with their lifestyle quality that next day. Although, there could have been researcher biased in the surveys. Another possibility could be the school’s choices of food, and their lifestyle at home. They did not eliminate many confounding variables. Reverse causation could be at hand in this study as well. Are students not sleeping because they’re not eating a well and exercising? I think that there should be an experimental study. It may be difficult, but have some students get their full nine hours, while another sleep for a nearly 7.9. This way you can fully monitor their lifestyle habits for the next day in comparison to the students that sleep more.