--Original published at Sherika's Psych Blog

A longstanding joke is that once you enter college, sleep is no longer an option that exists. For many college students, sleep is a luxury that gets tossed onto the back burner compared to the multitude of obligations that college students are under. Such as homework, projects, or even senior thesis’.

Currently my sleep habits/schedule aren’t what I would describe as healthy. I’m naturally a night owl. I tend to be more productive than I am during the day and have jokingly admitted to friends on several occasions that I can’t remember what the sun looks like. On any typically day I’ll wake up some time after noon or closer to 2 o’clock and go about my day, by doing work, catching up on the news, etc. I’ll stay up until maybe 3 or 4 in the morning, fall asleep and repeat the process all over again. I typically want change my sleep habit unless I have a planned engagement that calls for me to be awake at 7 or somewhere before noon.

While my sleep schedule/habits aren’t healthy. I feel that it works best for me since if I naturally get up before noon my mental capacity isn’t at it’s best until way later in the evening. Even if I eat breakfast and hydrate myself. However, according to several sleep studies over the years the most amount of sleep that one should get in order to live healthily is 8 hours in total. While I don’t sleep at a normal time, I feel that with my own sleep schedule I get 8 hours of more of sleep, regardless. So I don’t feel there needs to be much changes to my sleep schedule. The only thing I would do is maybe go to bed at a reasonable time so that I can get up earlier than noon.

--Original published at Noah'sPSY105blog

College students absolutely have some of the worst sleep habits out of almost any group of individuals that you could imagine. Many students will attest to the difficulty of being able to balance a good night’s sleep, completing assignments on time, and keeping a social life. I often find myself deprived of sleep, especially during the school year. However, even when I make it home on summer break, it is extremely difficult to find a way to get back into a normal sleep schedule. Currently I would say that my sleep habits are extremely unhealthy. I often have to wake up fairly early to make sure that I have ample time to get myself ready for work. After I work most of the day, I tend to work on my course work for several hours on end, usually into late hours of night or the earlier hours of morning. Following the completion of my work, I usually enjoy watching TV for a short while to help myself relax and get ready for bed. Utilizing this schedule, it is nearly impossible for me to get around 8 hours of sleep and sometimes I may even struggle to get 6 hours of sleep.

I would say a realistic amount of sleep for myself would be within a range of 6-7 hours of sleep, depending the night. I think some of the ways I would be able to improve my sleeping habits would be to manage my time a bit better so that I will be able to finish my course assignments earlier than usual which would give me more time to rest. I also think that I should attempt to prohibit myself from staying up past a certain time so I will be able to set a sleep schedule for myself, which will also give me more time to sleep.

--Original published at Rickster's Psychology Blog

The first prominent theory is for restoration of the brain. This has been a rising and dying fad throughout time. This theory is making a resurgence because new studies are suggesting specific genes only activate during sleep. These genes help with restoration and metabolic pathways

The second theory is energy conservation. The idea behind this theory is when we sleep, we save calories. However, if you compare someone who slept all night with someone who stayed up all night with limited movement, the difference is only 110 calories. This theory is much less credible due to the small difference in calories saved.

The last theory advocates for brain function. It suggests we sleep for brain processing and memory consolidation because when you sleep after learning a task, you are much more likely to learn and remember the information. You also have more creativity after sleeping on information so you are more likely to come up with simple solutions to complex problems. The more important synaptic connections are strengthened after a good night’s rest.

I believe the 1st and 3rd theories are the same. I feel like the 3rd theory gets more into detail about what the 1st theory does. If you combine both theories it would be, “We sleep to restore brain processes and memory consolidation.”

I think sleeping is like checking email. When we sleep, we’re checking all the important emails from work or staying up to date with our fields of study from newsletters we receive. Then we clean out the junk mail and delete it because memes and dad jokes aren’t important and don’t need to be stored in our hard drives.

Then we wake up in the morning. We go through our daily routine. Then we check our email again.

--Original published at olivyahvanek

During the school year I would not go to bed until later at night because I was never tired until then because of the work I had been doing for classes. Now that it is summer and I don’t have nearly as much homework to be doing and I don’t have classes to be attending daily, I find myself able to sleep a lot earlier than during the school year.

As a college student I feel as though I do get a decent amount of sleep, but not as much as I should be getting. I think that my sleep habits could be better and I could manage my time differently so that I can get more sleep, while also succeeding academically. My sleep schedule during the school year was definitely much different than my current sleep schedule.

During the summer time I find myself going to sleep a lot earlier and getting to sleep for a higher number of hours than I did during the school year. I think that an ideal number of hours of sleep a college student should be getting is somewhere around 8 hours because then they wake up more refreshed and then are less likely to be taking naps during the day, wasting time that they could be using to study.

I think that one way I could improve my sleeping habits would be to take less naps during the day and spend more time doing homework and studying, rather than sleeping. This would allow me to sleep more at night and get the correct amount of sleep that I need, rather than getting small bursts of sleep during the day and not a lot at night.

--Original published at JVershinski's Blog

I think my current sleep habits are actually quite good. I like to go to the gym a lot, and if I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t feel the best when I workout. This feeling forces me to get enough sleep because otherwise I would have a really bad workout. I sleep anywhere from 7-9 hours a night, usually on the higher end of that range. I don’t like to sleep in so I usually wake up around 7 or 8 in the morning and get out of bed shortly after. Sleep, in my opinion, is one thing that many students think they can skip over because it’s not as important as they think, but it really does make a big difference in almost every aspect of one’s life.

I think a realistic amount of sleep for college students is the 7-9 hour range. The problem with a lot of college students, and the reason they don’t sleep enough is because of laziness. Many college students do not plan out when to do their homework well so they leave it till the last minute and cram it all in one night. I think one major way to improve these sleeping habits is to try to go to bed at the same time every night. This will hopefully induce a habit of when your body begins to shut down for the night. Another big thing that could help with better sleep habits is time management. If college students would manage their time better, then they wouldn’t need to cram for tests or do an entire project the day before it is due.

--Original published at Courtney's College Blog

Recently, I have been desiring to alter my sleep schedule, and hopefully this chapter will give me tips on how to do so. On the typical school night, I sleep from 12 to 6am, since I always have 8am classes. During the morning, I am energized and have minimal trouble paying attention. In the afternoon, I struggle to stay awake and am ready for my nap. I take a nap from around 3 to 5pm. This gives me enough energy to study, exercise, go to club meetings, or events in the evening. Although I get 8 hours of sleep total, I think that the breakdown of those hours are unhealthy. I am tired throughout the day, so I think that if I had all eight hours at once, I would be more energized.

When I saw this prompt, it reminded me of one image that has gone viral on social media. It says that you can only pick two of the following: good grades, a social life, or sleep. This predicament is something I have been navigating, and I am sure many other college students have been as well. I believe that it is possible for college students to get at least seven hours of sleep, but it may involve sacrifice to do so. A student may have to cut back on work hours, or limit how often they socialize in order to get sufficient sleep. In my case, I will not go to sleep until I am 100% confident that I am prepared for the next day of classes. After many late nights, I was urged to make a study schedule. Each day, I set aside two hours to be focused on my schoolwork. This new implementation has caused me to let go of a major commitment, but I do not regret it because I am now getting 6 hours of sleep throughout the night, and 2 hours during the day. Since I have prioritized by sleep, I am a happier person and have better grades. I would advise any student to make their sleep a priority.