Enter unconsciousness and see what goes on before the alarm clock goes off
teenagers and young adults get more than nine hours of sleep a night. But take a full load of classes, add a part-time job, an extracurricular activity or two and a social life, and that eight- to nine-hour goal moves further and further out of reach.
"Most of the time when I don't sleep it's because of having to work really early," he says. Plus, he stays up really late. For example, Klein says he works from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Saturdays, takes a break, then returns to work and bartends from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. He back at it again at 10:30 on Sunday morning.
"My weekends are usually low sleep and constant work. And then by Sunday night I can usually catch up on it, and then it helps I don't have class until 1 on Monday," he says. "If I had an early class Monday, I might have flipped out by now."
Class, work, sleep, repeat
Jamie Klein, St. Charles, Mo., senior, says he usually sleeps about seven hours a night during the week, but gets less sleep on the weekends. Klein, who is majoring in philosophy, is kitchen manager and bartender at Quinton's Bar & Deli, 615 Massachusetts St. His 30-hour work week, paired with his class load, makes the recommended eight hours of sleep unrealistic, he says.
During the week, Klein says he is able to stay awake during classes, thanks in part to his laptop and his interest in the lectures. But Klein says fatigue sets in when he returns from school or work, which is why he relies on naps to give him a little boost.
Naptime
A nap can be a tired college student's best friend, but sometimes it can backfire.
"In the sleep world, sleep is a drug and naps are a dose of that drug, and you want to give the right dose to the right person at the right time," says Ronald E. Kramer,