--Original published at BillardnBlog

Sleep is much needed for a college student in order for them to work through their incredibly busy schedule. Although, many take on the mentality “sleep is for the week”. Students stay up late then wake up early the next day numerous times in a week. This tends to be a poor cycle to follow as it does not allow students to focus and learn effectively in their classes. A well known fact is the proper amount of sleep one should have is at least 8 hours per night. This is difficult for many college students trying to balance their work assignments, social life, extra curricular activities, or sporting events. I’d believe the amount of sleep a student should try and reach is at least 6 hours of sleep. Maybe on the nights their most busy they would get small amount of hours to sleep, but other nights taking the time to go to bed earlier and gain a few more hours.

My current sleep habits are not what I wish they would be. Typical nights I am in bed between 12-1. With my schedule I have 8am classes everyday, so my alarm is set at 7 o’clock every morning. I normally get 6 or 7 hours of sleep per night. I know that these are not healthy sleeping habits due to how tired I can be the following day. Its harder to focus and participate in classes. Although, getting to sleep at a reasonable time is sometimes difficult because I am involved in a sport. Everyday the team has a practice afternoon or night. Some nights we wont get home from an away game until 10 at night, then I’ll have homework to do after.

There are ways I have been trying to use in order to get more sleep. Through the soccer department, I have to log in 4 “study hall hours” every week. I try and utilize them to get ahead with homework, reading, or notes. Especially if I know I have a soccer game coming up that will take away most of my time or studying. Another way I could help myself is using the free time I have between classes on some days to work on upcoming homework so I won’t have to spend that time later in the night. This will all help me get to bed earlier and gain more hours of sleep. I hope I am able to plan out a better sleeping schedule because I do know if I or anyone continues with a poor sleep cycle, there are higher consequences. There are higher levels of fatigue and poor health. Even becoming sick with something such as Mono or Epstein Barr.

--Original published at Site Title

Sleep is a very important, getting enough of it is a key part of living a healthy life. Most college students definitely struggle with getting a healthy amount of sleep. Some might sleep too much, but most sleep too little. Not getting enough sleep and sleeping too much are both unhealthy for the human body. The amount of sleep that is considered healthy depends on your age. Teenagers and young adults should be getting about seven to eight hours of sleep every night. I always feel my best when I get exactly eight hours of sleep. When I get too much sleep I wake up tired and feel out of it all day. Sometimes it is hard to get eight hours of sleep when you have three papers due in one week and test at the end of the week and quiz the next day. There is a lot you have to keep up with in college and sometimes that might result in sleep deprivation. Being a collegiate student athlete makes it even harder to get sleep. Keeping up with school work and being fully committed to the sport you play might also effect the amount of sleep one is getting. I always try to get eight hours of sleep or close to it. This semester, I was lucky enough to not have an eight AM class. I have a 9:30 class two days out of the week. I could go to sleep at 1:00 and still get eight hours of sleep. I believe eight hours of sleep is a realistic goal for college students. Most of the time, the reason why college students are not getting the correct amount of sleep is procrastination. Procrastination is the main cause of sleep deprivation in college. Some of us might not have this problem but most of us do. We let all of our work pile up until we have to do it all that night. So we’re frantically studying and doing homework at two o’clock in the morning instead of getting a proper amount of sleep. I try not to procrastinate, but when I do it usually results in sleep deprivation. College students can improve their sleeping habits by staying on top of their school work to prevent procrastination. Your body tells you when it is tired. Don’t fight that fact that you’re tired, go to sleep at a reasonable time so you can be ready for whatever comes your way the next day.

--Original published at MentzersBlog

Russell Foster  on Ted Talk outlined three reasons on why we sleep. I chose to agree with his one option restoration against the other two, energy conservation and brain function. In restoration there  has been proof of genes that only turn on during sleep and that is only associated with restoration. Your brain behaves like a muscle when it comes to sleep. When you workout you need a full nights of rest for your muscles to recover. The brain needs to do the same; restore, replace and rebuild over the night. Without these three orders the brain won’t be able to be refreshed to go back to work. This the same as when you workout the somebody part everyday for a week. If you do this your muscles can’t be recuperated and will not grow correctly. Overall Russell Foster explained everything, but restoration  stood out to me and has been proven and makes the most sense.

--Original published at Em

I chose option one because I though it would be more interesting. Russell Foster’s three prominent arguments are restoration, energy conservation, brain possessing an memory conservation.

Restoration means that when we are asleep everything we use during the day we need to recover. This theory goes in and out of “style” and is in style right now.  The energy conservation Idea is not very good because the difference between calories is 10  between being awake and asleep. This is not a very valid theory. Memory processing is that when you are asleep the mind needs to sort the memories and process the days memories. The mind is three fold more effective after sleeping. Again there is not one proven reason just evidence that sleep deprivation reduces creativity and concentration. I was also particularly surprised by the fact that Ghrelin is produced if you have 5 hours of sleep of less a night. Ghrelin increases appetite.

I think the restoration and the memory conservation theories make sense. The restoration theory is logical because the brain uses a lot of energy. Recovery and rest are necessary for any muscle.

The memory processing approach argues that during the day your mind takes in so much that it needs time to sort whats important. It seems logical to me that during the night your brain would have all its energy to commit to sort through the vast amount of information. Some memories go to long term memory. The encoding process allows for later retrieval. In conclusion there is no one theory.

--Original published at Site Title

Many college students often feel overwhelmed with work and have trouble with time managing.  I frequently found myself my first year of college spending late nights doing school work or studying for exams.  It was difficult for me to get to bed at a good time or to get what I viewed as enough sleep.  I believe the average amount of sleep a human should get is 8 hours, but an individual may need a little more or less.  I have gotten better recently with managing my school work so that I have been sleeping roughly 6-7 hours a night which I think is a pretty decent amount of sleep.  I also tend to be on my phone before I fall asleep which probably isn’t good for my sleeping schedule and should be a habit that I change.

I think around 6 hours of sleep or more is a reasonable number for college students who are swamped with school work and social lives.  It’s hard to balance it all and get accurate sleep but I do see the importance of sleep and believe steps should be taken to strive toward the ideal goal of the average 8 hours.  The brain restores and builds on what we learn during the day so sleeping can be just as important as studying for a class.  If you don’t get good sleep everything you have learned won’t be retained.  Neural connections of important things strengthen when we are asleep that being sleep deprived won’t allow.  I believe winding down would help benefit me to fall asleep instead of just jumping from doing school work right into bed.  I also have a bad habit of needing to sleep with some kind of light (I think its due to my fear of the dark) that probably isn’t aiding the sleeping process much.  Keeping an organized list and planning out homework, school events, sports, and sleep can also help me to recieve all the benefits from a good nights sleep.

--Original published at Casey's Blog Site

Option 2:

With my schedule this semester I believe on average I get maybe 6 hours of good sleep where I’m not waking up or tossing and turning. I know when time comes for bed I am certainly ready and welcome being able to sleep but some nights I don’t always sleep the best. I don’t exactly have any real sleeping habits other than setting my alarm before I go to sleep if that is even is considered as a sleeping habit. I don’t have a set time to go to bed but for the most part I get up at the same time everyday with the exception of the weekends. I don’t believe this is a terrible unhealthy sleeping habit other than having less time for sleep on the nights that I am up later.

I feel as though it is best for a college student to have on average 8-9 hours of sleep each night for their brains to have enough time and rest from the day and process all the information that the student took in. To improve sleeping habits one might set a time to wake up and go to sleep. Also drinking a cup of water before going to bed may help as well. I have also heard/read that sleeping naked also helps with sleep since it makes it easier for the body to control it’s body temperature. Other than these few ideas I am unsure of the best ways to help improve sleeping or creating sleeping habits that will help in the long run.

--Original published at Lynsey Wissler's Blog

Lynsey Wissler

Sleeping

When assessing my current sleep habits several things come to mind. I personally do not have a strict sleep routine. Some nights I go to bed before midnight, some after. In the morning, some days I wake up before 8 where sometimes I don’t get up until 10. This inconsistent sleep schedule is not good for my body. Research shows that our bodies need consistency, especially with sleep. Another sleep habit that I have is napping. I nap usually once a day anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours.  These habits could explain why I am so tired even when I think that I got a lot of sleep; my body could be catching up from the nights before where I had less sleep. I personally do not think that these habits are healthy. I feel as though they would be too irregular for my body to reset every day.

I think that a realistic goal for a college student to have is around 7 hours of sleep a night. Although, we most likely need more sleep than this I think that seven hours is a manageable number when social life, studying, sports and extracurricular activities are taken into account. This number would also depend on the class schedule and how vigorous the student’s college life is.

I feel that there are several ways to improve sleep habits for all students. First, I think that trying your hardest to be in bed around the same time a day can really help to keep you on a steady sleep cycle. By doing this your body can get in the habit of being asleep at a regular time and possible therefore fall asleep faster. Another suggestion for sleep habits would be to count how many hours of sleep you’re getting per night and try and get the same amount every night. With this suggestion, consistancy could help maintain achieve better sleeping habits. Overall, there are many sleeping habits that could help a college student who has developed sleeping habits that are not beneficial to them.