Catching Z’s Instead of F’s
Studying positive sleep habits in college
Lack of sleep affects students everywhere, and the health effects can be extremely detrimental. What is often not documented is the negative effects sleep loss has on academic life. I was put into a group of other students who wanted to research the same topic and find the root causes or solutions to the problem.
As a student at SFSU, I have taken it upon myself to research what this problem is and ways in which I can combat it in my own life. This is a passionate issue for me, since my whole life I have been a student, and now that I am at SFSU, my education is more important than ever. These years will have me working towards a profession, and adulthood, which is why it is imperative I understand how to sleep effectively.
Although it is often taken too lightly, losing sleep or practicing poor sleeping habits can negatively affect academic performance in more ways than one. Professor in Neuroscience, J. Roxanne Prichard, cites a study where performance while sleep-deprived was compared to performance while inebriated. “…After being awake 16 hours in a row, brain function starts to decline, and after 20 hours awake, you perform as if legally drunk” Such an effect is particularly debilitating because of just how alert you have to be in order to perform academically. Although 20 hours may seem like a stretch, I can remember being up for 16+ regularly during my years in highschool.
A particular time that made me realize how serious the issue was my junior year, when we had just started online school.I had a final in a class that I spent days studying for, running late hours into the night and cutting my sleep down in order to fit the studying down. When the day arrived for me to take the quiz, I slept in too late and missed the class period to take it. It was like my body had punished me for not getting enough sleep. In the article An Underrated Key to College Success: Sleep, it is mentioned that losing out on sleep like this can affect your genes that govern Circadian rhythm, causing your body to be thrown out of equilibrium and not perform to its highest potential. The article Cites a study that saw that “…when men’s varsity basketball players got an optimal amount of sleep, their free-throw and three-point field goal percentages increased significantly.”
The same article reports on a survey of 55,000 college students that found that the ones with less sleep were less likely to be able to handle their course load, and more likely to drop out. This kind of cognitive function is important, and losing it had an effect on a classmate of mine as well. Alyssa Ramirez worked to study sleep with me in our engagement group. Alyssa recalled a time where poor sleep habits affected her academic life: she mentioned that despite staying up late or all night for tests, she would perform poorly on them, proving the article’s point that sleep loss messes with your physical health, no matter how good you think you feel.
Part of the reason I think it is a problem for students is that it is oftentimes promoted or encouraged. As a student, the article was interesting to me, since I remember highschool being an environment that encouraged or sometimes linked a prideful attitude towards pulling an “all nighter”. Kids would brag about losing sleep or how long they were up studying, only to perform poorly or fall asleep during class. Adequate sleep needs to be promoted to youth.
Fortunately, there are solutions to this problem, as long as students are willing to take the steps to implement them into their life. In the New York Times Article How to Crush Your Habits, one of these methods is called “Priming your Environment”, dubbed so by author James Clear. As the article puts it, “If you want to save more money, unfollow retailers’ social media accounts. If you want to watch less mindless television, unplug your TV.” Although it seems obvious, taking steps like these are the most important part of the sleep journey. For me, this meant putting my phone away an hour before I went to bed, as electronics have been known to be harmful before you sleep, and I generally find myself staying up on my phone far too long during hours that I could be sleeping. Another part of this was organizing my schedule so that I could go to bed at a consistent time.
Here’s where I could notice the effects. Besides feeling generally more well rested and happier, I tried to take account of my academics. I judged based on my math class, where I have daily homework that gives me immediate scores on how well I did. Although I noticed an increase in my average scores, the bigger thing I noticed was how much easier it seemed. Not only would it take me less attempts to get a problem right, but I was more willing to do them, I wasn’t facing the mental fatigue I was used to. In tandem with this, I “Celebrated Often”, as the article says to do. Whenever I achieved some good sleep, I would tell a groupmate of mine and they could either relate to me or bolster my spirit to do it again. In this way, I surrounded people with a like minded goal and was able to achieve it better.
College requires intense levels of dedication, attention to detail, and time. In order to function at your highest, adequate sleep is required, which more often than not eludes me. Reading these articles Helped me identify not only the problem and its effects, but the solution. Although I know I may not always adhere to what worked for me during the time of writing this essay, it is to my comfort and peace of mind that I am not only capable, but able to fit these kinds of habits into my lifestyle.
