You can feel the sounds of the classroom rattling in your mind, reverberating painfully in places you didn’t know existed behind your ears. Your eyes are heavy and swollen; you start to close them slowly, ever so slowly. The drone of the classroom is inviting you to a place you haven’t been to in a while: sleep.
Snapped back to reality by a friend, a professor or your forehead hitting the desk in front of you, the cycle is only bound to start again. When finally your head is on a pillow, your body will then give you a break as you claim the rest you desperately need. This scenario is all too familiar for college students around the country. For them, sleep deprivation harms their success in school and the workplace as well as their health.
According to WebMD, the consequences of sleep deprivation include decreased performance and alertness, memory and cognitive impairment, stress on relationships, a poorer quality of life, possible occupational injury or possible automobile injury.
Colorado State University sophomore Hannah Rapp is no stranger to sleep deprivation ruining her day.
“When I don't get enough sleep, I’m unable to pay attention during class and even sometimes miss class due to my exhaustion,” she said. “I leave my homework for the last minute, so if I don't get it done before it gets too late, I go to bed and leave it for the morning. When I have homework still to do in the morning I usually have to wake up early to finish it, but I want to try to sleep as long as possible, so my homework doesn't get as much attention and effort as it should.”
This paradox hinders our biological cycle of rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep) and keeps us from performing at our highest capacity. Famous writer Charles Caleb Colton once penned, “The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.”
Yet even as the world often faces the battle of the bedtime, college students in particular are a group most at risk of not getting enough sleep.
“Some reasons college students are not sleeping well is because they are more prone to sometimes drink alcohol close bed time, smoke or chew tobacco or use caffeine close to bed time,” CSU Health Network registered nurse Kelly Wiechert said. “Another factor is many college students are away from home and their living arrangements have changed, particularly freshman. In the younger generation many people have had their own bedrooms and if that is interrupted in college, it takes them a little longer to adjust and go into a comfortable sleep.”
Wiechert treats CSU students for sleep deprivation regularly, and says the Health Network gets many walk-in appointments where students complain of having a hard time sleeping. It’s that lack of shuteye, she says, that then translates into college students not waking up for class the next day.
“It's hard to even get up in the morning if I’m sleep deprived,” CSU sophomore Camille Svendson said. “Sometimes I'll just blow off school because of how tired I am. In college, every single day matters, every class matters and the more I miss, the worse I do in that class. If I skip once because of sleep deprivation, it gets easier and easier to do so in the future. It's a never ending cycle.”
Not waking up for class is no surprise to Wiechert. When grades start dropping classes? because of poor sleep habits, it usually becomes a driving force that sends them to seek professional treatment.
“We have a lot of students who don’t make it to class because they don’t get a good nights sleep,” Wiechert said. “It will affect their performance in school or a work place. The increase in absences and inability to concentrate during class will eventually be reflected.”
Even if a student does show up for class without enough sleep, one nurse says they still aren’t taking in enough of what is going on around them to learn the material properly.
“It could result in lower concentration and ability to focus, so yes it does play a role in lower performance levels,” Kaiser Permanente registered nurse Rebecca Wolf said. “With a lower ability to concentrate you are also compromising your reaction times to information and situations around you.”
That resonates with many students. In a college culture where “pulling all-nighters” to cram for a big test is common, it took a few times for one to realize that studying without sleep wasn’t doing them any favors.
“When I don't sleep, my academia suffers,” University of Missouri junior Andrea Kszystyniak said. “I'm more prone to test anxiety and I'm often unable to perform as well on exams or even stay awake in class. To catch up on rest, I sleep through the day only to later realize I have tons of homework and then I have to stay up all night. It's a never ending cycle of exhaustion.”
Even in high school, students say they are learning the cycle of sleep deprivation early on.
“As a sleep deprived high school student I find it hard with lack of sleep to put all of my focus into my class work as well as give my full attention to my teachers,” Arapahoe High School senior Jake Hanneman said. “Lack of sleep slows down the brain, and make you regret going to school.”
Aside from sleeping arrangements, alcohol use or tobacco use before bedtime, Wiechert says stress and worry are also major players in what keeps college students awake.
According to a study from the Journal of Adolescent Health, stress about school and life keeps 68 percent of college students awake at night — 20 percent of them at least once a week. The quality of their sleep due to stress is worse than sleep affected by alcohol, caffeine or late-night electronics use. Out of 1,125 students in the study, only 30 percent sleep at least eight hours a night. On weeknights, 20 percent of students stay up all night at least once a month and 35 percent stay up until 3 a.m. at least once a week. Twelve percent miss class three or more times a month or fall asleep in class.
“I've lost a lot of sleep this semester taking 18 credits,” CSU junior Janelle Dam said. “I've had to pull many all-nighters and it has affected my ability to stay alert in class, so a lot of the information given is class doesn't resonate with me. I then have to do more schoolwork outside of class in order to catch up on the information discussed.”
So what can students do to stop worrying and start snoozing? In something the nurses call “sleep hygiene,” a little planning will help sleeping well each night.
“You need to go to bed every night at the same time,” Wolf said. “Keep the bedroom for sleeping only. You literally should only go into bed to sleep. Avoid alcohol or stimulants in the evening or excess sugar and caffeine. Not eating too close to bedtime is important too.”
Wiechert also stressed the importance of routine and staying out of bed if you aren’t resting. Once someone gets into a sleep rhythm with their biological clock, she believes they will sleep better.
“We recommend they have a pre-bedtime routine that will help their body wind down. Maybe it’s playing music, wearing earplugs, and having an extra blanket or anything that will make them comfortable. Also a lot of people study or watch TV in their bed so then they associate their bed with these activities. It doesn’t allow them to know the bed as a place for sleep. They should move those activities to the couch or another room.”
If those steps don’t help students fall asleep, Wolf says there are other factors that could be keeping a person awake. These range from a sleep disorder like sleep apnea, insomnia or symptoms of depression to other medical reasons, including the types of medicine a person might be taking.
“Getting diagnosed is an hour-long process,” Wiechert said. “Students will come in (to the Health Network) and we will take their situation from there. Some may be given Tylenol PM or Benadryl to temporarily help them sleep, but some people can become addicted to those medicines. It all depends on what the actual reason is for their lack of sleep.”
Despite all the advice, tips and reasons for college students to fall asleep at a decent hour, there will always be those night owls who test the limits of bedtime. Take junior Kaite Huss for example; as she calmly sips her third Americano Caffè late one Tuesday evening at the Fort Collins Alley Cat Coffee House while preparing for tests.
“I may function slightly below a level of alertness,” she agrees. “So yes, sleep deprivation definitely affects me. It’s only after a good night's sleep that I feel my most productive, creative, and able to do the most homework. But the trouble is doing all of this work means less sleep.”
Sidebar: 5 Quick Questions with a Good Sleeper
Who: Bailey Weber, CSU junior, Parmelee R.A.
1.) How well do you sleep each night?
I sleep okay. I try to go to bed only when I’m super tired.
2.) What helps you fall asleep?
I go through my muscles and relax every single one to help me fall asleep.
3.) What keeps you awake at night?
Things running through my head keep me up, like stress. I try to not go to bed with a list of things to do in my head.
4.) What makes you wake up in the middle of the night?
Noise or being too hot temperature-wise keeps me awake.
5.) Do you ever take anything to help you sleep? Why or why not?
No I don't take anything. I don't know what to take. Maybe Nyquil sometimes if I am not feeling well.
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