I spend a majority of my time thinking about sleep, especially how I wish I had gotten more the night before. I am probably not the only college student feeling this way. In reality, sleep is not just a luxury college students don’t have time for, rather it is a vital and beneficial pursuit. In fact, I was recently convinced that my social and academic college performance depends on my making time for sufficient sleep every day. This is very exciting! Neuroscience can provide the perfect excuse to get more sleep.
Dr. Cavanaugh‘s talk presenting his research into circadian rhythms of fruit flies and the application to humans peaked my interest. The main problem with sleep deprivation is that sleep debt is incurred. While some sleep debt can be “repaid” with extra hours of sleep the next night, the effects of losing sleep cannot all be erased. Most disturbingly, sleepless nights are also associated with neurodegeneration in areas of the brain that are not known to regenerate neural cells. Yikes!
As usual when it comes to health, the best tactic for getting my attention and motivating me to do better is scaring me with the shocking outcome of my unhealthy behaviors. Therefore, hearing that repeated sleepless nights can result in irreversible neurodegeneration got my attention. Further pursuit of the subject led me to the fascinating topic of the effects of sleep deficits. In the article “The Hidden Costs of Sleep Deficits”, multiple studies on the subject of sleep deprivation showed alarming results.
According to Dr. Walker of UC Berkeley, sleep enhances the performance of every organ in the body. Furthermore, there is a strong correlation between sleep and emotion: the ability to regulate your own emotions as well as recognize others’ emotions is lessened by sleep debt. Therefore social situations become more precarious to navigate by the sleep-deprived brain of a college student. Loss of sleep is harmful even to the point of harming relationships with loved ones. The lab of Gordon and Chen at UC San Francisco found that conflict resolution was impaired when one partner was low on sleep. If just one partner was low on sleep, couples were less likely to work out arguments than well-rested couples.
Work is also negatively affected by lack of sleep: sleep-deprived people not only make more mistakes but are unaware of making them. Shockingly, this includes increasing unethical behavior. Business students participating in a study by Michael S. Christian of North Carolina University at Chapel Hill and Aleksander P.J. Ellis of University of Arizona were given a short test to take. The participants were told they received a dollar for every question answered correctly. The participants were allowed to grade their own tests and to take a dollar from the money envelope for each correct answer. The sleep-deprived business students were more likely to take more money than they had actually earned compared with the well-rested students. Finally, even the 40 minutes less of sleep around daylight savings time results in increased auto and workplace injuries!
Since sleep deficit can harm relationships, behavior, decision-making and even personal safety, sleep is vital for all college students seeking success in social as well as academic situations. The article shows that sleep is important for all aspects of health, so maybe we should make time for it just like healthy meals and time at the gym. So, I issue a challenge to myself and to all college students to proactively prioritize sleep, carving out time for it every day and intentionally sticking to bedtime.
Finally, an interesting question for further research on all the sorely under-slept college students is how much sleep deprivation does it take for irreversible neurodegeneration to result?
Reference:
Report, O. S. (2017, November 30). The Hidden Costs of Sleep Deficits. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/the-hidden-costs-of-sleep-deficits
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