College is typically seen as a transitional period in one’s life. Often, it can be a person’s first foray into adulthood; separation from parents means the loss of certain rules or establishments that a student has been used to for what could possibly be their entire life. Chores, curfews and bedtimes disappear and are left up to the responsibility of the student. But as most people know, sometimes it may be difficult to discipline yourself into going to bed at a reasonable hour, especially during the peak of a college semester when a student can be balancing studying for classes and exams, hobbies such as sports or video games and maintaining a social life by spending time with their friends. Such an agenda expends the daylight hours to such a point that it begins cutting into a student’s nightly sleep schedule.
When this happens, a consistently sleep-deprived student can expect their performance in academics to take a turn for the worst, along with their mood and mental and physical well-being. On average, about 70 percent of college students report themselves as receiving inadequate sleep on a nightly basis, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine. As one grows older, the amount of required sleep per night decreases at a steady rate in proportion to their age, but in the case of college students, they typically occupy an age category that requires the most amount of sleep for their minds to properly function.
Sleep, according to the American Psychological Society, is closely related to how one’s brain stores long-term memories. When one receives inadequate rest, their brains cannot properly consolidate memories into long-term storage, leading to acute memory loss over time. This is especially taxing on a college student who would, for example, pull an all-nighter to study for an exam, only to have trouble remembering the material the previous morning.
Memory is often the first to suffer, which leads to one’s GPA to suffer as well, but it is not the only health-related matter to which a lack of sleep is detrimental. According to Harvard Medical School, less than eight hours of sleep per night on average can lead to conditions such as heightened rates of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, lowered immune functions and depression.
Obviously, this is an issue that one must be aware of to make sure they do not fall into these pitfalls. It is unreasonable to place all the blame on morning classes or late tutoring sessions, and one must properly balance their schedule outside of school to properly function on a daily basis. A student who is conscious of their sleep schedule will cut back on the number of hours spent playing video games per day, or watching YouTube videos or whatever else it is they might do that would possibly distract them from getting their sleep into the late hours of the night. Pulling an all-nighter once or twice per semester in dire situations is fine as long as adequate sleep is received over the next few nights to allow your body and mind to recover. If it becomes the norm, expect to be feeling the pain, physically, mentally and academically.