Sleeping Deprivation on College Students

Sleeping deprivation occurs when a person does not get enough sleep. Sleep is very important because you need to get enough sleep so that you can be refreshed for the next day. For a person to get enough sleep and function very well, depends on ages. According to experts, lack of sleep in very harmful to your body and sleep gives our body a chance to overcome tiredness and fatigue.

According to Kathleen Davies (2018), define sleeping deprivation as normally happen when one does not sleep than they need to feel awake and alert.

Or the inability to fall

asleep or stay asleep soundly. The general sleep disorder when one does not fall asleep or waking in the middle of the night and being unable to go back to sleep. Sleeping deprivation varies from individual to individuals depending on how little sleep in needed.

Sleeping deprivation is very common but varies across all ages. The percentages of adult getting sleep deprivation is about 35% because they get less than 7 hours sleep during a typical 24-hour day.

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Report made by high school student getting sleeping deprivation is about 73% and they get less than 8 hours sleep on school nights. Also, the middle school student gets about 58% sleep deprivation by getting less than 9 hours of sleep. The following sleep pattern has been recommended by the National Sleep Foundation for different age group:

• New-borns 14 to 17 hours
• Infants 12 to 15 hours
• Toddlers 11 to 14 hours
• Pre-school 10 to 13 hours
• School aged Children 9 to 11 hours
• Teenagers 8 to 10 hours
• Adults 7 to 9 hours
• Older Adults 7 to 8 hours

American Thoracic Society (2019)

Sleep Deprivation is a condition of having an inadequate amount of sleep.

At least 50% of college students exhibits daytime sleepiness due to sleep deprivation compared to 36% of adolescents and adults. College students, on average get about 6 to 6.9 hours of sleep per night. (Shelley. D.H & Ronald. D.C. 2014)

Causes of sleeping Deprivation on College Students

Lack of enough sleep is the most common cause of sleep deprivation. Awakening, due to lack of sleep and an increase in nightmare arousal or consistent wakening up early, can lead to sleep deprivation and the piling of years of lack of sleep, can also lead a change in psychological effect on an individual. Also, other causes of sleep deprivation are: poor sleeping habits, sleep disorder like insomnia, restless leg syndrome and sleep apnea

College students tends to sleep anywhere, at any time for as long as possible. Many of the college student go to bed very late and this behavioural patterns of inadequate lack of sleep turns into a different thing. These lacks of sleep are due to multiple reasons; like physiologic and behavioural activities. Due to the lack of sleep hygienic, student have developed a certain behavioural activity which has affected their circadian rhythm, and this can encourage sleep deprivation. This lack of quality sleep affect or impact their class performance. Majority of students live by themselves and don’t have anyone to tell them how to use their time. In this case, they choose to stay up late socializing and enjoying school life when they should be sleeping.

School activities and class room work can put a lot of pressure on the students where they have to go to sleep very late, because they normally have to sacrifice their sleep-in order to complete their work. Also, the environment in the school and its surrounding can let the students go to sleep very late and this will affect the quality of their sleep. Campus living students often experience loud music and nosy neighbours can make it much harder to get restful sleep

According to (Gilbert & Weaver. 2010), getting enough sleep improves the life styles of students and this is very important. It also helps student to have a good memory consolidation, learning, decision making and to have a critical thinking. A study was also done by Ahrberg and his colleagues (2012), they found out that different types of stress affect the circadian sleep rhythm of the student. This implies a working student can feel stress from going to school and also working hard to get a job done. Students also likes procrastinating their assignment and trying to work through the night by completing their work and Ahrberg and his colleagues concludes that the result of sleeping late is due to the stressor on the student

Effects of Sleeping Deprivation on College Students

According to JJ Pilcher & AS Walters (1997), Sleep deprivation can easily affect the performance of college students. Student participate in the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal and after 24 hours of sleep deprivation, students were ask to complete questionnaires, one assessing self-reported effort, concentration estimated performance and the other assessing the off-task cognitions.

Students with sleep deprived performed worse than those without sleep deprived participant on the cognitive task. The sleep deprived students rated their concentrations and effort higher than the nondeprived students did. Also, the sleep deprived students rated their estimated performance significantly higher than the nondeprived students did.

A study was done by Gilbert and Weaver (2010), they found out that, lack of quality sleep affects the academic performance of student with extracurricular activities. Another research by Medeiros and three other colleagues (2001) study the correlation between poor performance and lack of sleep. They analysed how irregular pattern of sleep can easily affect the academic performance of a student. This was done by analysing a prolong sleep by some student and due to lack of quality sleep by these students, it really affects their academic performance.

Also, the ability to think clearly, react quickly using various human memories can be affected by ability to perform through sleep deprivation. This normally happen on teenagers and depression sets in. Increase in anxiety can also be cause by sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation can also be affected by the overall health, due to the less sleep which is associated with health problems. An increase in high blood pressure, heart disease, obesity & diabetics can also be affected by sleep deprivation. The effect of alcohol can be increase by sleep deprivation