Get Sleep

Has anyone in here ever cut their night's sleep short to study for a test? Has anyone ever crammed all night for a test? I'm pretty sure there aren't many people in this room that would answer no. Dr William Dement estimates that up to 95 per cent of Americans suffer from lack of sleep at some point in their lives. For many students, when it comes to school, the importance of sleep gets overshadowed by the importance of studying. Most think that losing sleep to study might make them tired but at least they'll be prepared for the test. The problem is, students don't realize the importance of sleep.

Depriving yourself of sleep causes what's known as a sleep deficit. A sleep deficit is the amount of extra sleep you need in a given night to get in order for your body to be properly rested. As you continue to get less than your needed sleep, you accumulate a sleep debt that must be paid to your body eventually. The more sleep debt you accumulate, the more likely you are to suffer from a loss of imagination, originality, and your ability to think outside the box. When taking a test on a minimum amount of sleep, a person has a greater chance of getting confused, impatient, and frustrated. A study by Jan Richardson of Texas Tech University suggests that student with 4 hours of sleep or less has a 34 percent greater chance of having an anxiety attack from being frustrated than a person with 7 hours of sleep or more. The bottom line is, the body just does not perform as well lacking sleep. If you don't believe me, believe NASA. In a Nasa (arianna online) study, they found that 21 percent of pilot errors occurred due to lack of sleep. In addition to helping the mind perform at its peek, sleep can also help a person learn. Research published by NEWS TARGET suggests that learning doesn't take place only at the moment of experience, but the brain repatterns the knowledge studied to create new associations and clarity while you sleep. While we sleep, the subconscious part of the mind is freer to create more connections between memories stored in the mind improving the learning process. Robert Stickgold, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School (learning require sleep), demonstrates that our memory of newly learned information improves only after sleeping at least six hours. Sleep is actually a tool that can help you learn the material.

As college students, we don't always manage our time the best way possible. Some students really may only have time to cram for tests because of work and extra curricular activities, but the a majority of students would rather play some x-box, watch tv, or talk on the phone until they absolutely have to study, usually at the last minute. William Knaus, a psychologist, estimated that 90% of college students procrastinate. Of these students, 25% are chronic procrastinators and they are usually the ones who end up dropping out of college. This procrastination usually results in a large sleep deficit the night before a test.

In order for you mind to perform at its best, students need to reduce their sleep deficit. To do this they need to figure out how much sleep is needed for their body to be fully rested. You can perform a simple test on yourself to determine how much sleep you need. First of all, you need to pick an amount of sleep you think you need in order to be fully rested. Next, for 5 straight days, you need to go to sleep at the same time and set your alarm for the same time in the morning. For example, if you think you need to 7 hours of sleep, go to bed at 12 every night and wake up at 7. One the sixth night, go to sleep at 12 again but do not set the alarm. If your body naturally wakes up around seven, you have no sleep deficit. If you sleep later, you have accumulated a sleep deficit and it's catching up with you. In order to perform at your best, you should try and go to bed around the same time every night and get as close to your sleep need as possible.

In order to get a good nights sleep, students need to reduce procrastination. The University