Is Lack of Sleep Actually a Problem?  According to Bernard Lubin in the article, “Study Finds Sleep Deprivation May Effect Learning”, “students today sleep less because there are new reasons for them to stay awake.”  There are so many new distractions due to all the new technologies such as:  Cell Phones  Video Games  Youtube  Social Networking sites  The National Sleep Foundation has found that college students are averaging 6.8 hours of sleep each night which is low compared to the recommended 9.25 hours  College students today sleep an average of two hours less per day than college students in the 1980s

What Causes Lack of Sleep?  College Workload  Studying  Work  Sports  Partying  Clubs  Any Other Activities or Distractions  Emotional Factors Such As:  anxiety  depression  life stressors  disturbing thoughts at bedtime

The Bigger Picture: Why?  Lack of sleep leads to bigger and problems for college students  Lack of sleep causes stress  Leads to insomnia and sleep deprivation  The combination of sleep loss, insomnia, stress, and sleep deprivation affects learning and memory.

Insomnia  Insomnia is a common sleep disorder that causes difficulty in falling asleep, staying asleep, or both.  Insomnia leads to daytime sleepiness, lethargy and a general feeling of being unwell both mentally and physically

Sleep Deprivation

How Does It Affect Learning?  Sleep helps encode memories and improves learning  A person lacking sleep cannot focus attention optimally and therefore cannot learn efficiently  Sleep is restorative and allows the brain to:  organize itself  store things properly  replace essential brain chemicals  and even solve problems

Solutions  Lack of sleep is definitely a huge problem on college campuses but evident solutions will most likely come from the students themselves  However, I think Universities can propose less obvious solutions

Helping Yourself  Avoid caffeine and nicotine. Caffeine can stay in your system for 14 hours and causes increases in the amount of times you are awaken during sleep. Nicotine at high doses has similar effects.  Try to restrain yourself from taking day time naps.  Minimize light and noise, and keep room above 54 degrees but below 75 degrees.  Snacks close to bedtime can be beneficial while heavy meals can interfere with sleep  If you're hungry a good snack is milk and crackers. Milk contains the amino acid L-tryptophan, which has been shown in research to help people go to sleep.

More Proposals…  If you love texting and it wont let you sleep iPhones have a nice little setting called “Do Not Disturb”. Just turn it on and all incoming notifications will be silenced. Android has an app available as well.

The University Can Help  In addition to handing out planners, schools should hand out a decent size calendar or maybe even have dry erase calendars in dorm rooms.  During opening weekend the campus could hold a scheduled assembly in the Center for the Arts building. Offer prizes to attract students.  The assembly could have a speaker explaining time management skills and how not to fall into sleep deprived weeks. Handing out the calendars and planners there and then showing how to make them as useful as possible.  The university could make this assembly mandatory by adding it into orientation.

How Will This Help  These solutions will help you organize your days and help you manage your time better to hopefully result in more hours of sleep.  This is important because letting your work pile up will lead to stress. The thought of all the work due and the tests you haven't studied for will cloud your mind, making it difficult to sleep.

Works Cited  "Study Finds Sleep Deprivation May Effect Learning." The Spectrum. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov  "Sleep, Learning, and Memory." Healthy Sleep. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov  Feature, R. Morgan GriffinWebMD. "Surprising Causes of Sleep Loss and Disturbed Sleep." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 05 Nov  Nordqvist, Christian. "What Is Insomnia? What Causes Insomnia?" Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 28 May Web. 05 Nov