Sleep Deprived?
How it effects your health, grades, weight, and so much more!
What is Sleep Deprivation?
"The condition of being deprived of sleep either under experimental or under unusual real life conditions, as distinguished from being unable to sleep. The effects of sleep deprivation lead to impaired hearing, sight, brain function, mental alertness, as well as physical ability, meaning slow reflexes and clumsiness. Sleep deprivation is bad for health, leaving one prone to get sick."[1]
5 Stages of Sleep
- Light Sleep; muscle activity slows down
- Heart rate and breathing slow down
- Deep Sleep Begins
- Deep Sleep; Rhythmic breathing, little muscles activity
- Rapid eye movement, muscles relax and heart rate increases. Dreaming occurs.
America's Top Reasons for Lack of Sleep
- Late Night Eating
- Worrying
- Sleep Disorder
- Too Busy
- Anxiety
- Medication
- Where you live
- Napping during the day
- Lying in bed when you ARENT tired
- Sleeping In
There are several ways that we are able to become sleep deprived. Some of the reasons, such as marriage conflicts and a new born baby would not apply to the average college student who are full-time students. I am going to select a few of the reasons that will target college students in particular and go over those.
Causes of Sleep Deprivation
Late Night Eating 
- The 3rd stage of sleep, deep sleep, is missed when people eat a large amount before bedtime.
- During a deep sleep a body is unable to repair and rest itself, if is to worried about digesting the food taken in.
- Even if you get the recommended amount of hours, your body will not be able to rest causing you to toss and turn in the night. Basically meaning you never reached the 3rd of Sleep.
- Overall this can cause your body to not digest all food and store it properly. Meaning, it is more likely to turn into fat.[2]
Late Night Cramming & Studying![3] 
- We all know going to college and never pulling an all-nighter is impossible. But it is proven that if you do get enough sleep you will do better on a test than if you stay up and study all night making it more likely you will do worse!
- Sleeping helps you to better concentrate.
- Sleeping helps you better perform.
Where You Live
- Living in a dorm with a roommate and constantly being surrounded by neighbors diminishes your chances of a goodnights sleep.
- There is always someone up making noise, your roommate staying up late with the lights on, or something going on that seems better or more fun the sleep.
So What does this cause overall?
Weight gain
Doing poor in school
Totaling into more stress
A Few Tips on How to get More Sleep:
- Set a regular bedtime hour
- Mom & Dad were right not letting you stay up late or sleep in too late during the weekends. Going to bed around the same time every night lets your body began to get in a habit of knowing it is time for bed. Getting up ( you can allow a 2-3 hour flucuation) at a certain time in the morning lets you establish this sleep pattern.
- Exercise!
- Yes, exercising does help you sleep, as long as its not before bedtime!
- Avoid Stimulates
- Drinking caffeine, aka. coffee, soda, ect., will make it harder to fall asleep.
- Quit Smoking!
- Drinking Alcohol will also increase your chances of not reaching Stage 4 of Sleep.
- No long naps
- The longer you nap during the day, the less likely you will need to sleep at night, leaving you tossing and turning.
- Don't procrastinate for test and pull all-nighters
- Its proven to cause you to do worse on your test, then actually sleeping and studying less.
- Create the right environment to sleep in
- Turn off all lights
- The cooler your room is the better you sleep. Just pile on blankets and wear real PJ's if it get to cold.
- This can be especially hard if you live in a dorm on campus, sorority/ fraternity house. Buy some ear plugs and a sleep mask to help block out unwanted noise and/or light.