WE ALL know the drill. You drag yourself out of bed, into the shower and off to class. After class you try to get your work done, relax a bit and catch up with friends and roommates. It doesn't seem to matter how little work you have or how early you try to get to bed, by the time your head hits the pillow, it's later than it should be and definitely too close to the start of another day. You're not the only one. According to the National Sleep Foundation, 56 percent of Americans don't sleep the recommended eight hours per night. Consequently, this week - March 27 through April 1 - is National Sleep Awareness Week, and there's no better time to show sleep who's boss.
Everyone wishes they could get more sleep. It's no fun barely dragging yourself out of bed, only to doze off in class. But lack of sleep isn't just a passing annoyance - it's dangerous. According to the March 27 National Sleep Foundation press release, "memory, mood, reaction time and alertness are diminished when we are sleep deprived."
Alertness and reaction time in particular are dangerous, as 53 percent of Americans surveyed for the 2001 "Sleep in America" poll admit to driving while drowsy. Nineteen percent also admit to dozing off at the wheel. This does not bode well for the safety of those driving - or for anyone else on the road. There is a "small but significant" increase in the number of fatal accidents which take place on the Monday after daylight savings time when we "spring ahead," and lose yet another hour of sleep (www.sleepfoundation.org). This is evidence that lack of sleep is a serious and immediate cause of traffic accidents. The short-term solution is to encourage drivers to get enough rest before traveling and to take frequent rests. However, the root of the problem, which needs serious attention, is Americans' sleep deprivation.
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Sleep deprivation also affects memory, which indicates that it isn't even worthwhile to sacrifice excessive amounts of sleep to study or complete class work - it's likely you won't retain what you study anyway. One in five Americans surveyed reported that their lack of sleep interferes with daily activities at least a few days per week. For college students this means an inability to stay awake during class or function well enough to complete work. It takes even longer to finish work when tired, meaning that students stay up even later and sleep deprivation becomes a cycle which is increasingly difficult to break. The only way to stop it is to catch up on sleep. This means scheduling a few days when you can sacrifice work in favor of sleep.
Although lack of sleep is common to the majority of Americans, it is not often recognized. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed report at least one symptom of amnesia a few nights per week. These symptoms include waking up without feeling refreshed, awaking multiple times during the night, waking early and not being able to fall back asleep and experiencing difficulty falling asleep to begin with. Even with such a high percentage of Americans reporting such problems, only 6 percent surveyed have been diagnosed as insomniacs.
Nor are all groups equally susceptible to lack of sleep. Of those between the ages of 18 and 29 years, 61 percent experience some form of insomnia. Additionally, those who live in the South get less sleep than they did five years ago. This means that college-aged students, and students in the South in particular, are more likely than others to loose out on necessary sleep.
Since college students are less likely to sleep than other groups, it's particularly important to pay attention to our sleeping habits. Let's face it, most of us aren't willing to sacrifice a party Saturday night in order to catch up on sleep. And if we hope to do well this semester, we need to keep up with our work, so eight hours of sleep each night is probably too much to ask.
But try going to sleep a half hour early and waking up a half hour late. Or take a nap - although this is best done before 4 p.m. if you still want to sleep well at night. Although it may mean less time to complete assignments, once you catch up on sleep you'll be more efficient and need less time to complete tasks anyhow. Until we can convince the University to schedule classes later in the day, it is up to us to take our sleep-health seriously. So here's to long restful nights and energized days!
(Megan Moyer's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at mmoyer@cavalierdaily.com.)
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