Introduction and Methods

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)