Sleeping is an important process that many of us, college students forget about. Personally I don’t go to sleep until around 3 am each day because I have a lot of homework constantly. I have found myself sleeping in class, on the bus and even sometimes behind the wheel. Not sleeping can be seen to be a good thing at times, but it can also be dangerous and unhealthy. 
Sleep is an important process that allows the body to recover, regenerate, and develop. It is a key component to staying healthy. According to the sleep foundation, young adults from 18 to 25 (college age) need about 7-9 hours of sleep per night. Sleep is more complicated than we think, and each time we get a normal night sleep, we pass through five stages. In stage one, it is where we drift in and out of sleep and can be woken easily. In stage two and three, the eyes stop moving and the body begins to slow down. Stage four
is where the brain begins to have very slow activity and the person is difficult to wake up. Finally stage five is where the brain reaches REM, this is where people begin to have dreams and are the most difficult to wake up. After learning the process of sleep, it is important to know why it is crucial to living a healthy life.
Not only can restlessness be unhealthy, it can be dangerous as well. Sleep deprivation can cause serious errors, especially while driving or operating machinery. For example, the Exxon Valdez oils spill was caused because someone fell asleep behind the wheel of a boat and cause an environmental catastrophe. 
Long periods of sleep loss can cause
- Heart failure
- Stroke
- Diabetes
According to research, nine out of ten people with a sleeping disorder also suffer from another health condition. It’s simple, if you can’t sleep, your body can’t repair itself. Once people begin to lose sleep constantly it is obvious in their appearance, because they have bags under their eyes, and they appear emotionless. In a longitudinal study done by the division of public health, they took a stratified random sample of 4,997 adults aged 65 and older as their sample. After compiling the results, they found a positive correlation between depression and the three main types of sleep disorders and accepted the alternative hypothesis that lack of sleep does cause depression. With this being said, there is no argument weather improper sleep will be detrimental to health and proper sleeping habits need to be put into place, even if it requires medication.
I’m actually so glad that you made this post! I had previously planned on writing a blog on the correlation between sleep deprivation and future drug/alcohol abuse. I decided against it because I found the topic pretty depressing and didn’t feel that passionate about the research. However, you gave me the perfect opportunity to briefly write about this! So, as is supposed, you could tack “drug/alcohol abuse” right onto your “Long periods of sleep loss can cause” list! According to psychology researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, their observational study states the hypothesis that poor sleeping habits while young can lead to a struggle with alcohol/drug use later in life. I don’t know exactly how I feel about this study because personally I do not get a lot of sleep, but I do not see any sort of illegal abuse in my future.
Check out the article to read more about it:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160919133447.htm
I completely agree, lack of sleep is horrible on us. Being a college student, I couldn’t relate to anything so well. Pulling an all nighter is nothing out of the ordinary here. I liked reading about REM sleep, and seeing how sleep really affects our bodies inside, not just our tiredness. I was wondering, what third variables do you think affect us getting less sleep? It is not always just because we are busy doing things. Here is a website to check out that gives advice on what to do when you cant sleep: https://sleepfoundation.org/insomnia/content/what-do-when-you-cant-sleep
I think this might be the most important article of our generation.. simply because we can all relate to the fact of losing sleep to study or write blog post or comment on blog post (lol at us right). Sleep is a necessity though and we often find ourselves in situations that could have been avoided. Like I will admit most times during test or hard homework I will stay up as late as need be to get that done and it definitely does have an adverse affect on us as college students, then comes the weekend when we all like to go out and have a good time. All of these third variables affect our sleep schedule and it does not get back into shape unless we force ourselves to go to bed early enough to get the required sleep. Overall great read and interesting topic choice.
http://campusmindworks.org/students/self_care/sleep.asp
There is nothing more relatable to a college student than talking about sleep. Pulling all nighters studying, saving homework to the last minute, and the occasional late night Netflix binge are only a few of the reasons we are all guilty of losing sleep. College sleep schedules are anything but usual and sometimes, like this blog outlined, it can be costly. We have all felt the negative effects of too little sleep but going more into depth with this subject what if we look to the other side. What if the question became is too much sleep costly? We all dream of the glory days of laying in our beds for as long as we wanted but at what point is that no longer a positive thing. Here is an article the lists some of the negative effects that too much sleep has on all of us:
Oversleeping Side Effects: Is Too Much Sleep Harmful?
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/physical-side-effects-oversleeping#2