Introduction
On average, humans spend about one
third of their life sleeping. This seems like a large amount of time. Sleep is
a necessary activity in human life to stay healthy. Sleep affects human growth,
stress hormones, immune systems, appetite, breathing, blood pressure, and
cardiovascular health. Do sleep schedules affect student’s academics? Academics
are extremely crucial to student’s especially in college years because this
stage of their life is important in determining their future. Student’s sleep
schedules may differ from the week nights versus the weekend nights. Student
schedules are so packed that they may be spending their entire nights staying
up doing homework or studying. Although, other activities may seem more
important to students than sleep, this could reflect on their academic performance.
Students’ academics involve a variety of lifestyle factors, and one of the most
important ones may be getting a sufficient amount of sleep on a daily basis to
succeed in classes.
According to Hershner and Chervin (2014), “A potential obstacle to
maximizing success in college is the high prevalence of daytime sleepiness,
sleep deprivation, and irregular sleep schedules among college students.” Students
stay up too late at night which causes them to not get a sufficient amount of
sleep to be alert throughout the day and ready to learn. According to Dement
(1997), “The average sleep requirement for a college student is well over eight
hours, and the majority of students would fall in the range of this value plus
or minus one hour.” Also, it is discussed that not getting enough sleep then
puts humans in sleep debt. In order to get out of sleep debt a human needs to
get extra sleep that is over the daily requirement. Students are so involved
with their studies and extracurricular activities it makes it difficult to make
time for extra sleep in such busy schedules.
In another
finding, it was found that sleep also correlates with alcohol consumption. It
is stereotyped that all college students spend their weekends partying and
drinking. College students indulge in alcoholic beverages and become
intoxicated leading them into the next day with a sluggish hangover. In a study
by Behav Sleep Med. (2015), “Sleep
disturbance and heavy drinking may function as a negative feedback loop.
Alcohol consumed 30-60 minutes before bedtime reduces sleep onset latency and
consolidates sleep during the first half of the night at both high and low
doses but fragments sleep during the second half, particularly at high doses.”
Students may believe that they are catching up on sleep on the weekends, but
they are really not receiving a healthy cycle of sleep if they are drinking
alcohol before they go to sleep.
Sleep can be difficult to prioritize
in a college student’s lifestyles. Sleep schedules can differ day by day, week
by week, or even month by month. Is sleep really affecting how students perform
in their academics. A survey was conducted to closely examine the times
students go to sleep on the week days, the week nights, if they are staying up
all night to study, or even sleeping in their classes. It is more than just the
aspect of sleep that is important it is when the students are sleeping that is
also important.
Methods
Participants: Those who participated in this study were
college students from the University of Iowa, who ranged in ages from Freshmen
to Senior year. ____ students participated in this study that helped contribute
to the results.
Procedure: Students were asked to complete an online survey
where they were asked to complete a series of questions relating to their sleep
schedules correlating with their academics. The first question was, “What time
do you go to sleep on a week night?” The question provide the choices of before
9:00 am, between 10:00-11:00 pm, between 11:00-12:00 am, between 12:00- 1:00
am, and after 1:00 am. The next question was, “What time do you go to sleep on
a weekend night?” The same answer choices were provided from question number
one. The third question was, “How often do you do an all-nighter to study or do
homework?” The answers choices provided were, almost every night, once a week,
once a month, a few occasions, or never. The fourth question was, “Do you fall
asleep in class?” The answer choices were always, usually, sometimes, rarely,
or never. The last question was, “Do you believe you do better on an exam after
getting a good night of sleep or studying all night?” The two choices to answer
this question were, studying all night, or getting a good amount of sleep.
These questions were asked on a website named surveymonkey.com. Bar graphs were
generated to help display this data to vividly see the difference between the
answers.
Data Analysis: (still waiting for some more responses on survey
to complete the data analysis)
