Sleep Needed for Human Life

Sleep is very important to a human being’s health. The consequences of sleep manifest in both health and performance. The relationships between sleep and performance have been studied in many different fields including human science, medicine, psychology, education, and business and etc. Sleep-related variables for instance sleep deficiency, sleep quality, sleep habits have been shown to influence the performance of students (Lack, 1986; Mulgrew et al., 2007; National Sleep Foundation, 2008; Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996; Rosekind et al., 2010). According to Weitzman et al. (1981) , Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS) was defined into three big categories which are long sleep latency on weekdays (normally fall asleep between 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.), normal sleep length on weekends (usually sleep late and wake up late on weekends); and difficulty in staying asleep. These sleep problem is common and is present in students around the world.

Results indicates that in the U.S., 11.5% of undergraduate students were found to have DSPS (Brown, Soper, & Buboltz, 2001). Not only that , Australian studies found the prevalence of DSPS in students (17%) to be higher than in adults (6-7%) (Lack, 1986; Lack, Miller, & Turner, 1988). Studies related to DSPS have also been conducted in other countries such as Japan, Norway, and Taiwan (Hazama, Inoue, Kojima, Ueta, & Nakagome, 2008; Schrader, Bovim, & Sand, 1993; Yang, Wu, Hsieh, Liu, & Lu, 2003). Furthermore, In Lack’s (1986) study, the DSPS group experienced sleepiness on weekdays more often rather than the non-DSPS group. In addition, , it was found that members of the DSPS group performed at a lower level academically when compared with the non-DSPS group when course grades were examined . In a more rec...

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... AT, Omvik S, Pallesen S, Bjorvatn B, Thayer J, Nordhus H. Qureshi AU, Ali AS, Hafeez A, Ahmed TM ). Moreover, the study showed that students who achieved good grade (A, B) were those who slept for more than 7 hours but those who majority failed in exam, were also mostly those who slept less.

However, a similar study done in USA showed that students who had struggling grades (C’s D’s / F’s) were those who slept significantly less than those who scored A and B grades ( Wolfson AR, Carskadon MA). According to the study, student slept an average of only 4.74 hours before the exam and females slept less (4.71+1.82 hours) as compared to males (4.77+3.27 hours ). This was similar to a cross sectional study done in Sao Paulo, which showed that boys slept about 390 minutes. However, their academic performance was not affected by the disturbance in the sleep cycle.