Pictured Above: Op-ed & Features Editor Molly Ryan regulates her sleep schedule on the newsroom couch. She advises fellow students to catch up on their sleep now, so it doesn’t disorient their academic and social life.
Sophie Ojdanic | The Crow’s Nest
By Molly Ryan
College is a time notorious for irregular sleep habits — but it’s more important than ever to maintain healthy sleep hygiene.
Doctors and psychologists agree that a regular sleep schedule is essential to maintaining a positive health, yet young adults struggle often to follow one regularly and COVID-19 has only made matters worse.
In an article by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Dr. Lawrence Epstein of Sleep HeathCenters in Brighton, MA, said “New research also highlights the importance of sleep-in learning and memory. Students getting adequate amounts of sleep performed better on memory and motor tasks than did students deprived of sleep.”
However, it’s another one of those things that’s so much easier said than done.
In my own personal experience, I have found that a sleep schedule and its maintenance is highly volatile. All it takes is one restless night to break the groove.
Tackling my first year of college has definitely been complicated by the fact that I have not felt well-rested since age eight.
But I know that I am far from alone.
According to Nature and Science of Sleep (Nat Sci Sleep), 50 percent of college students report sleepiness in the daytime while 70 percent report insufficient sleep.
“The consequences of sleep deprivation and daytime sleepiness are especially problematic … and can result in lower grade point averages, increased risk of academic failure, compromised learning, impaired mood and increased risk of motor vehicle accidents,” the Nat Sci Sleep article said.
Students can find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of lack of sleep leading to tipping grades leading to poor mental health leading back to lack of sleep, and so on.
“Sleep is closely connected to mental and emotional health and has demonstrated links to depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and other conditions,” an article by the Sleep Foundation said. “While research is ongoing to better understand the connections between mental health and sleep, the evidence to date points to a bidirectional relationship.”
When mental health declines, quality of sleep and proactivity fall with it. And much of the time, it’s hard to tell where the cycle started.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also made it especially lucrative for sleep habits to go haywire, as
“I feel like college has impacted my sleep schedule by (making) my winding down time a little more stressful with homework,” senior anthropology major Kat Osani said. “Sometimes it helps me by being in person, but without classes in person it’s harder.”
Osani isn’t alone, either.
Freshman graphic arts major Kayla Shumaker thinks routine has a lot to do with sleep. She sees COVID-19 as having affected routines.
“COVID-19 has caused me to go to bed much later because I have been at home and I don’t need to wake up as early,” Shumaker said.
Regulating unsound sleeping habits never seems easy, and it isn’t, but the solutions are not as complicated as they seem.
The Sleep Foundation stresses the importance of “sleep hygiene”: getting a fixed wake-up time, prioritizing sleep, regulating exercise and diet are all practical ways of doing so.
“Optimizing your sleep schedule, pre-bed routine, and daily routines is part of harnessing habits to make quality sleep feel more automatic. At the same time, creating a pleasant bedroom environment can be an invitation to relax and doze off,” the Sleep Foundation said.
Management information systems junior Adam Hale has found an unorthodox way of controlling his sleep cycle, though.
“During my (early) college years, I had an uncommon sleep schedule. I stayed up until 5 a.m. and slept in until 2 p.m. most days. In order to fix my sleep schedule,” Hale said. “I would wait (from 5 a.m.) until nighttime to actually go to sleep. Doing this would shift my circadian rhythm to a more regular sleep pattern.”
Hale stressed that this method might not work for everyone, as sleeping habits are unique to the individual, but it was able to get him into a healthier schedule.
While getting a good night’s rest may not have seemed like such a big deal, you can see now that it can impact many aspects of your school and social life.
As for myself, I still have some things to sort out, but I know for sure that five hours is not going to cut it anymore.
