Make your alarm clock your friend!

I found this app for iPhones called the Sleep Alarm Clock and it has some pretty cool features to aid you in your sleep. Just place your phone next to you in bed, and the Sleep Alarm Clock will track your sleep cycle and wake you up during a lighter sleep phase where you are in a more alert cycle. This way you feel refreshed when you wake up (waking up during your REM sleep sucks because it is your deepest cycle of sleep!). There are a bunch of other cool sleep apps for those of you with iPhones. Try some out and see if they improve your sleep quality! Sorry for those of you who don't have an iPhone :(

Now I'm an insomniac?!?!

This picture just about sums up my sleep the past two nights.  I don't know what the deal is, but now I can't seem sleep even when I'm actually given the opportunity. Both nights this weekend I was lying in bed wide awake. Come on dude! If I haven't made it clear by now, I JUST WANT TO SLEEP. After thinking about this though, I shouldn't be surprised. In my research I found that individuals who are sleep deprived are at risk for various health conditions such as depression, alcohol abuse, and insomnia. What do you know? It looks like I'm experiencing another one of the negative effects that sleep deprivation can lead to. I'm not saying I'm a diagnosed insomniac anything, but I'm definitely experiencing symptoms of it. This project has really opened my eyes to how serious an issue sleep deprivation is. Researchers aren't just blabbing about something they think is problem. I can vouge for this with the fact that many of the causes/effects they have listed that relate to sleep deprivation are ones that I have personally experienced because of my lack of sleep. I've really become aware of what I'm doing to my well-being and health. This has motivated me to change my poor sleep habits! I'm not about to become a diagnosed insomniac!

Time for an intervention.

I'm sure many of you have established that I struggle quite heavily with sleep deprivation, but it has definitely progressed even more since I started this project and I think I'm going to start my own intervention plan. I'm definitely more aware of the harm I am doing to my body by not getting enough sleep and this has made me want to improve my sleep routine (awareness was one of my solutions to this issue!). Here's what I'm planning to do:

• Lighten my course load next semester- I definitely put way too much pressure on myself with the classes I chose to take this semester. Statistics, Sociology, Art History and upperlevel English. Bad choice. This seems like a pretty manageable schedule, but these classes all require a lot of the same work and this has put me through the wringer. Between all the reading, papers, projects, tedious statistics homework and exams I am in over my head. This month I had 3 research papers, a multi-media project (this blog!), two exams and on top of that I had to keep up with the reading and material in my classes. YIKES. My homework load has defintely been the biggest factor in the cause of my sleep deprivation. It's time for that to change.

• Lower the stress- The stress I have experience this semester has also been affecting my sleep quality and ability to sleep in general. I've mentioned in some posts how I've had trouble sleeping because I am so stressed out with school. My thoughts are constantly swarming with worry about school and how I'm going to get my assignments done in time. I've had numerous dreams where I'm trying to work on a paper or project and can't seem to do it right. Overall, this has made my sleep very unpleasant and well, stressful . Stressful sleep, a bit of an oxymoron don't you think? Sleep should be relaxing and rejuvenating. Since my stress is strongly tied to school I think my stress levels will defintely decrease with the lighter course load I plan to take next semester.

• CAPS- The University of Michigan has a great counseling center called CAPS. It stands for Counseling and Psychological Services and it has a variety of services available for students seeking help. Sometimes when you're stressed out it helps to simply talk to someone about it who wants to listen. Just being able to flesh it all out can be a great relief. I've actually made arrangements to have my own counselor at CAPS and I think this will be a great resource for me to have when my stress levels are high.

• MAKE SLEEP A PRIORITY- This is what's most important and some of you other college students who don't get enough sleep should consider this too. Whether you have to give up being more social, working more hours for your job, or working late into the night on homework, it will be worth it..trust me. Many students don't realize the benefits of getting a healthy amount of sleep because they never actually do. I was never as sleep deprived as I am now and the difference in how I have felt during the day is very noticeable. I'm constantly fighting to stay awake in classes, easily frustrated, have low self-esteem and overall just exhausted with no energy. I'm not putting up with all that negativety anymore because SLEEP IS COMING FIRST.

~*~If you are sleep deprived don't let it defeat you, make the effort to change your habits!~*~

Ditto.

I can't agree with this message more. I can't remember the last time I went to sleep any earlier than 2am. Lately, 3am has become the standard time I go to sleep. As I've mentioned before, I constantly have so much work to do with the semester nearing its end. The amount of papers, projects and exams has gotten out of hand and this is all keeping me from going to sleep at a decent hour. I would love to be "meeting" 3am in my sleep rather than while I'm up doing homework and studying. Unfortunately, the odds of that are close to none with finals approaching. This semester just needs to end!

Sweet dreams...not so much

I found this image it pretty much sums up what my sleep has been like the past month. The intensity of the semester has left me stressed, overwhelmed and highly sleep deprived. The heavy amounts of work I have to do are not all that has kept me from sleeping. When I finally get into bed, my mind is either racing with anxiety about school or my dreams are filled with school related issues about assignments and exams I have coming up. 

SCHOOL IS HAUNTING ME IN MY SLEEP.

Sleep Myths

I found a reading from National Sleep Foundation that listed some common myths and facts about sleep deprivation. Some of these relate to what I've been discussing and a lot of them are just good to know in general for improving your sleep hygiene! Have a look!

This totally happened today..and last week

I know this is a rather small example, but this is exactly what happens to me in my Art History lecture AT LEAST once a week. I have this class on days where I have to be up for work at 6am, so usually I've only gotten about 4 or 5 hours of sleep max the night before. I struggle heavily to stay away during this class, let alone take notes. I have numerous pages where my notes lead into scribbles, end randomly or slant down the page because I start falling asleep mid-sentence. I'm just a mess aren't I?

Track your sleep.

The other day I was doing some more browsing on various sites and came across this Sleep Tracker. It has you enter in the hours of sleep you got each night as well as the time you went to sleep/woke up. Once you start putting in the hours of sleep you got it tells how far you are from the ideal range and what your average sleep hours are per weekday, weekend, and month. I think this is pretty cool. It really gives you a good visual in terms of the average amount of sleep you're getting and how far you are from the healthy range. Try filling it out and see how you're looking on your average amount of sleep. I've been filling mine out for about a week so far and here are my results:

The ideal range is 7-9 hours. I'm in that range a few times, but for the most part I'm pretty far down from that area. It looks like I'm not doing too well so far in terms of getting a healthy amount of sleep. BLEH. What else is new?

NegativeNegativeNegative

There are some issues in our world that aren't one side in terms of the consequences of being subject to them, but not for sleep deprivation! There's nothing good that comes out of it if you aren't a biased college student(cramming for exams you didn't feel like studying for in advance, being able to party more or having time for "more important things" do not count as postive outcomes).  Anyway, I found this chart while doing some reasearch and thought it had good examples of negative effects of sleep deprivation other than what I've mentioned. A few of mine are listed here, but check out the other ones! Knowledge is power right?

Effects of Sleep Deprivation

I guess I'll never win..stress is a killer and so is school.

So I mentioned how I was looking forward to the Thanksgiving break because I figured I would get some good sleep. Nope. Even though I am home and have a "break" from school, my stress is still high and it's keeping me from sleeping. I have so many big assignments that are due soon and my mind will not stop worrying about them. Every night that I've gotten into bed my mind starts racing about the 3 papers I have due a week after I get back from break. When I "fall asleep" I have dreams about myself working on my papers and not being able to fix them. I'm semi-conscious of these dreams so it's really driving me nuts at night. I cannot stop thinking or stressing about school. Both stress and school are destroying my ability to sleep. Will this ever end? I would like to sleep like a normal person again, please and thank you. I truely miss sleep.

The Vicious Sleep Cycle

This is a great visual of a lot of what I've been talking about. One negative effect of sleep deprivation really leads to another. This cycle pretty much echoes my sleep deprivation, the effects I feel from it and how I function throughout the day because of it. Well, minus the napping. I don't have time to nap. Too many other things going on! Anyway, I bet many other college students can relate to this diagram. If so, try to be proactive and change some of your bad sleep habits!

Look what I found!

So maybe I'm more excited about this than some of you are, but I was doing some more research about sleep deprivation and came across this.  I found it in an article called "Sleep Deprivation is Dangerous" from Everyday Health. What I found is called the Epworth Sleepiness Scale which is used to determine daytime sleepiness. I wrote about this in my paper so I thought it was cool when I found this. Try filling it out to see if you have daytime sleepiness or how sleepy you are. If you score higher than 10, you might want to think about whether or not you are getting sufficient sleep, need to improve your sleep hygiene, and/or need to see a sleep specialist. Also, Everyday Health has a lot of great information about sleep deprivation and the effects of it in general. Check it out if you're looking for some guideance!

Defiant college students.

I thought this image was funny. Who better than Patrick Star from Spongebob to demonstrate some sleep deprivation? Also, I think many college students believe "sleep is for the weak". We constantly pull all nighters and don't think anything of it. I think we convince ourselves that we are some sort of anomaly that can master anything on a lack of sleep. It's almost like a challenge we put ourselves to. We'll load up on energy drinks and five hour energy shots to stay up through the night to get an assignment done that we put off until the night before, and it's no big deal! Just the lifestyle of a college student right? I have to say that I find myself guilty of this motto many times. At the moment actually. I'm pretty tired right now and should be going to sleep so I will feel energized and refreshed tomorrow, but instead I'm forcing myself to stay up and get my work done. This is on my list of things to change in my sleep habits!



Time to give in.

So it's almost 2am and here I am up, per usual. I've been working on a paper for class and I think I've fallen asleep 3 or 4 times unknowingly as I'm typing. I've also stopped and stared my computer screen for long periods of time forgetting what it is I'm doing exactly. It's safe to say that my sleep deprivation is starting to get the best of me. I'm losing my ability to stay awake, focused and my overall cognitive functioning has definitely depleted. I think I'm pretty useless at this point. I'm usually quite the fighter when it comes to staying up to get work done, but I think it is time to give in and just go to bed. I have class at 8:30am so it's probably a good idea that I try to get maybe 5 1/2 hours of sleep. Hey, it's more than I've gotten the past two nights! Alas, sleep is calling my name.

10 tips for better sleep at college..OR NOT.

So I came across an article called "10 Tips for Better Sleep at College" and as much I want to say that it gives some helpful tips for sleep deprived college students, I can only point out how unuseful the tips are. College students, let's have a look at what we can do to improve our sleep habits

There are a number of things I could bash these tips for, but I will refrain myself. I don't know about other college students, but I would say that just about every one of those tips is useless for a college student. I'm not saying that these tips wouldn't be helpful, but researchers need to realize that sleep deprivation in college students is not a simple issue that can be resolved with some simple suggestions. Many articles with information like this fail to recognize the reality of a college students agenda. A major reason why college students are so sleep deprived is because of the many obligations they have going on in their lives and how they choose to prioritize them. Many are aware that they are sleep deprived (like me), but the demands of their schedules do not allow for them to get the sleep they need and college students usually put sleep behind other obligations. Getting homework done, socializing/partying on weekends and working a job are typical things that often come first to a college student and many aren't willing to put things like adequate sleep ahead of those. It's really up to the students themselves in many cases as to whether or not they improve their sleep routine. Now before I sign out I just want to say my beef about some of these "tips".

"Create a sleep schedule and stick to it": this is one of the most unlikely things for a college student to do. As I said before, college students have priorities and sleep is often not one of them. Our sleep schedules are probably the furthest thing from a schedule. We sleep as much as we can fit in with everything else. College students will have consecutive nights of staying up until 3am getting work done and then they will have nights where they go to sleep at 11pm. Our sleep schedules all depend on the other obligations we have to tend to during the week.
"Don't sleep in on weekends or when you have late class; wake up close to the same time everyday": Weekends/late class days are the only times college students can actually get sleep. We rely heavily on these times to catch up on sleep and it's really not possible for a college student to wake up at the same time every day with our erratic schedules.
"Put books and homework away at least 30 minutes to an hour before bedtime": Pshh! This is college students we are talking about here. If we're up late doing homework, we work to the last minute and get to sleep as soon as possible in effort to squeeze in what hours of sleep we have left for the night. Setting aside 30 minutes to an hour without books/homework before bed is not likely. College students don't have that kind of time.
"Turn out the lights when it is time to go to bed; a bright room will keep you awake": Well duh. I would think most college students (and people in general) prefer to sleep with the lights off when they go to sleep. At least I do.

Maybe I'm being too harsh and am just crabby/frustrated due to my lack of sleep. I got 3 hours last night and 4 hours the night before so I'm feeling pretty irritable and in general I'm just exhausted. Unfortunately, I have a lot more work to get done before the glorious Thanksgiving break (just one more day away!) so no sleep for me tonight! I guess I'm just used to it by now.

Very very deprived.

So I'm starting to find that a lot of the research I've found about sleep deprivation in college students is applying to me as well. Many of the studies that I've read up on said that one of the major causes of college students being sleep deprived is stress.  In a study investigating sleep patterns and poor predictors of sleep quality in a large population of college students, 68% reported that stress interefered the most with their sleep. When the students were asked about other reasons for their poor sleep 35% of their of responses were all related to stress, "stress about school", "racing thoughts", "worry about the future" etc (H.G Lund et al.). These stressors can be overwhelming for students who have yet to develop proper coping mechanisms for dealing with stress. As a result, students experience even more worry/distress by dwelling on about current/past stressful events. I'm noticing that I have been experiencing these same issues.


I haven't been able to sleep well throughout the night the past few nights and I think a main factor for that has been my stress level. I've been very stressed out with all the work I have to get done and it's been a rough past few nights of sleep. I keep waking up throughout the night worrying about the work I have to get done and how much of it I've done/how I'm going to finish it. I've also been having really disruptive dreams where I feel a lot of anxiety. Pretty much I just haven't been able to sleep even though I'm exhausted. I was looking forward to sleeping in last night since it's the weekend, but all through the night I kept waking up. I went to sleep at 3am, was up at 9:30am so 6 1/2 hours of sleep. I feel pretty tired and I think it's safe to say that stress has increased my lack of sleep. I'm not only up very late and not getting the sleep I need, but when I have the option of sleeping in I can't even do that. The good news is that Thanksgiving break is coming up and hopefully some of the stress I'm experiencing will be relieved while I'm away from school. I'm looking forward to getting some good quality sleep!

OuT oF bAlaNcE

So I was able to get a pretty good amount of sleep last night (10 hours woo!) and was looking forward to not feeling like crap for once! What actually happened is I have felt very groggy and "off" all day long. I also feel really tired, but not sleepy tired as if I could fall asleep. I just feel sluggish. I did some research and I've got another lesson about poor sleep habits for you. When you experience any change in your sleep routine, you set off your body clock which leaves you feeling out of balance during the day (Amoroso 2002). It's important to keep your body on the same schedule. Even if you are constantly deprived of sleep (like me) and get more sleep one night than usual, you won't actually feel refreshed or "recharged' with sleep. This is a problem among many college students. We have nights where we get as little as 5 hours of sleep 2 or 3 nights in a row and assume we can just sleep in the next day and feel fine. It's not that easy! If you want to start feeling better throughout the day, try making the effort to move towards having a regulated sleep schedule. I know this is highly unlikely for many of you college students, but I'm just putting it out there for you to consider! Now ya know why you don't feel always feel as good as you expect when you get that "one night of sleep"!

Sleep Deprived: what happens?

So mentioned earlier that I would talk about some of the negative effects that college students experience from sleep deprivation. Here are just a few for some of you to think about next time you decide to stay up late!


Studies have shown that students who don't get the recommended 8 or more hours of sleep in a night are likely to experience the following symptoms:


-"Daytime sleepiness": this is something many people will experience when they have not gotten enough sleep the night before. Individuals will feel very drowsy during the day and overall have low energy levels. Those of you falling asleep in class all the time are most likely being hit with daytime sleepiness.


-Negative mood/ behavioral flucuations: feelings of anger, frustration,  confusion, depression and fatigue are all very commmon. A decrease in concentration, alertness, vigor, memory, and a loss of initiative and interest in daily activities is also common.


-Decreased academic performance: studies have shown that students who do not get optimal sleep on a daily basis have lower GPA's while students who do get optimal sleep have higher GPA's (Eliason et al. 2010).


-Weakened immune system: sleep strengthens you immune system so reduce your risk of getting sick by getting a healthy amount of sleep as much as possible.


These are only a few of the many negative effects of sleep deprivation. Just thought I'd throw some out there for you to think about. Sleep really is important for your health and well-being, so start making an effort to get more sleep if you aren't getting enough. Trust me, you will notice how much better you feel.

Nodding off..

So today was another day of major lack of sleep and it definitely had an impact on me during the day. I was up until 2am studying for my stats exam and doing other homework. I had to be up at 6am for work so I got a whopping 4 hours of sleep. Can't say I felt so great from that. I felt extremely sluggish at work today and it was really challenging to be friendly and upbeat with customers (I work at a cafe called Beansters). My eyelids were constantly drooping and I was pretty miserable. Once work was over I was off to class and that wasn't any better of an experience. I was struggling to stay awake and kept nodding off while trying to take notes. This was really frustrating. My lack of sleep continues to interfere with my ability to pay attention in class (let alone stay awake) and my self-esteem has been quite down lately due to this. What can be done??? Is there any way to stop being so sleep deprived? Tonight is going to be another late night with all the homework I have and the exam I have coming up. I have class at 8:30am so I'm thinking I will get at most 5 1/2 hours ( 2am I usually my cutoff when I need to be up early the next day) judging by how much work I have to get done for tomorrow. I guess I will just have to deal with it and manage it the best I can.

Time for some results..

So I haven't really talked much about the research I've been finding on sleep deprivation in college students. I've accumulated a lot including my own that I did on campus and through a survey. To start, I'll give some results from my survey. It looks like a majority of college students do feel that they are sleep deprived (79%) and 83% answered that they get an average of 5-7 hours of sleep a night during the school week; 17% get an average of 8-10 hours per night. What was interesting was that 62% of students said they needed 8 or more hours of sleep to function well the next day. Students clearly aren't getting as much sleep as they would like. What I can infer from this is that college students have many other priorities (homework, job, social life) that they choose to put before sleep. 5-7 hours is the amount that students can fit in with all their other obligations. The agenda of a college student can be quite hectic! Overall, it's not good that college students are getting an amount of sleep below the recommended need. 5-7 hours of sleep should not be the average amount college students are getting. The National Sleep Foundation states that young adults need an average of 8 or more hours of sleep a night to be healthy. There are numerous negative effects college students will experience when they have not gotten sufficient sleep. I'll post on that later!

College kids all around aren't getting their sleep!

So here's a video I thought would be good to post. A student at a university (wasn't specified) did a documentary on sleep deprivation in college students and got some personal thoughts from individuals on campus about their sleep deprivation. 

Video time

Hey so here's a break from me talking and just a quick video that stated some information that is pretty relevant to some of the research I've found regarding sleep deprivation in college students. Check it out:

Sleep? What's that?

So here I am again up late. Time for bed? Nope. Going to bed at this hour would seem pretty reasonable, but not for me. I think it is safe to say that the concept of sleep has become quite foreign to me. I have become so accustomed to not sleeping very much in a night that I don't think I can bring myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour anymore. Oddly, the sleepiness I felt throughout today has now passed and I don't seem to feel the urge to go to sleep anymore. I'm wondering if this happens to other college students (survey time??). Maybe I'm in an "I don't need sleep phase" which would be very odd. Last week it was a painful struggle to stay awake at any time of day (not to mention night) with the lack of sleep I got. I could probably go to sleep right now considering it’s Thursday night (technically Friday morning) and I don't have any work due for tomorrow, but the homework load I have for the weekend and upcoming week is rather terrifying and I'm too stressed out for sleep right now. I think I will make a survey about this and find out if other college students feel this happens to them. Once I get the results I will post them for you guys to check out!

I'M TIRED!!

So it's Friday night and I JUST WANT TO GO TO SLEEP. It has been a long week of little sleep, stress and constant homework doing and it has taken its toll on me. It hasn't even reached midnight yet and I'm exhausted. I've been exhausted. It just never ends. I thought today might be a bit less of a struggle since I went to sleep at 2:30am last night and didn't have to be up until 10am. 7 1/2 hours, woo! I was at least close to getting the recommended need of 8 hours compared to the average of 5 or 6 that I got during the rest of the week. I'm finally sleeping in tomorrow and should feel replenished of my lack of sleep by the end of the weekend, but is this really the case? An article that I read recently stated that college students often will try to compensate for their loss of sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends. What actually happens though is that the extra sleep they get is still not enough to make up for the sleep they lost during the week and the result is sleep debt. Well, that sounds promising. I guess my sleep deprivation is just going to be a never ending vicious cycle.

Spotted: Victim

So today in my Art History class we were watching a movie (always a killer for a sleepy student) and I noticed a girl in front of me that was looking rather drowsy. I thought to myself, I wonder how much sleep she got last night? I can't help but be curious considering I'm studying the topic of sleep deprivation. As class continued on her eyelids began drooping and she was resting her head on her hand. At least she was fighting it. I was pretty sure she was going to be a goner within a few minutes. I look over to her desk 5 minutes later and she's totally knocked out with her face flat on her desk. Well, I guess that's what happens when you don't get your sleep! From what I've researched, I've been finding that insufficient sleep has proven to hinder academic performance in college students. It looks like these findings stand true! Hopefully my classmate is getting some good sleep tonight so she can make it through classes tomorrow. I've been in her place many times before and it's not a good feeling. Us college kids really need our sleep.

Time to blog about sleep deprivation!

Now that I have finally gotten my blog going it's time for me to start posting! I'm researching sleep deprivation in college students and will be posting daily about my findings and just how I'm feeling as a sleep deprived student myself. I made a survey that will hopefully provide me some good results about sleep deprivation in college students. If you're a college student, check it out and fill it out if you don't mind!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BGLK9NX