Sleep Deprivation Essay

1254 Words3 Pages

There have been a number of studies that studies the factors that may affect student’s academic performance. Several factors include social relationship, stress level, family, sleep, health, study habits and time management. Unfortunately, recent research is increasingly showing that there is an increase in the number of students that are not getting enough sleep, which can cause negative impact to their academic performance in school.

Sleep is vital to one’s well-being. It is as important as the air that you breathe, the water that you drink, and the food that you eat. It is a very important component in each individual’s life and sleep problem has become more common in the present time. However, people often underestimate sleep and its …show more content…

There were 40 participants involved in this survey. The first question of the survey is “Do you have a good sleeping habit or bad sleeping habit?” 29 out of 40 students said that they have a bad sleeping habit. There is a student who said that “I considered my sleeping habit to be bad because I often stay up late at night.” Just like other college communities, Ball State students also suffers from bad sleeping habits which cause sleep deprivation. There are many students that sleep for less than 6 hours. According to the survey, there are 7 students that chose more than 8 hours, 13 students chose 6-8 hours, 18 students chose 4-6 hours and 2 students chose less than 4 hours. The most common reason for going to bed late is because of doing school work. However, college students need to sleep for 8.5 to 9.5 hours per night in order to perform efficiently in class. Most of the students find it difficult to go to sleep because they feel more alert and awake at night, which causes sleep …show more content…

When there is an upcoming exam the next day, most of the students will study very late at night while sacrificing their sleeping time in order to achieve a better grade for the test. However, studies have shown that this could greatly decrease the critical thinking skills, cognitive function, problem-solving skills and short-term memory of college students. Then it will result in a consequence where students perform worse rather than having enough sleep to prepare for the test. According to a research study, students can perform better and efficiently by obtaining enough sleep and rest each night (Schumacher & Sipes, 2015). American Academy of Sleep Medicine also mentioned that the best way to maximize performance on final exams is to both study and get a good night of sleep (AASM, 2007). However, most of the students did not know about this truth. They think that spending more time studying can increase their grade, but in fact, it is the other way around since they sacrifice their time to sleep. Students will feel tired while studying for the test the next day, which makes them perform inefficiently. Furthermore, students are not aware that their ability to memorize is decreasing gradually. As time pass by with not having enough of sleep, these consequences will stack up and they will discover that they cannot store anymore information in their memory. Students will find a hard time to study for a test.

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