photo by Eric Braem
As college students, we know the signs of sleep deprivation: nodding off during class, taking five-hour naps and feeling sleepy behind the wheel. We cram our schedules with academics, jobs and social lives. And what are we cutting out of our lives to make room for everything else? Sleep.
Colin Rohlfing knows sleep deprivation well. As an architectural engineering student, he spends the night before a big project in his studio in Marvin Hall wide awake. After a sleepless night, Rohlfing, St. Louis senior, tries to catch up by sleeping at least 10 hours the following night. He says his erratic sleeping habits have thrown off his sleeping cycle, depriving him of much-needed sleep and creating bad academic habits.
"I can now stay up all night long to do other things. It started off in my architectural studio. Then it went on to tests and papers in other classes," Rohlfing says. "I find myself being able to procrastinate."
Sleep, or lack of it, is a big problem for college students. Though the problem is most often sleeping habits, sometimes a diagnosable sleep disorder is to blame.Either way it's important to identify the problem and do something about it.
There are currently 88 documented sleep disorders, according to the International Classification of Diseases. The four symptoms to watch for are excessive daytime sleepiness, sudden loss of muscle control, falling asleep hallucinations and sleep paralysis, which is a period of paralysis upon waking. Other symptoms to take note of are waking with a very dry mouth or throat, morning headaches, snoring or sporadically stopping breathing while asleep.
One in four people experience some type of breathing disturbance during sleep according to the Web site for SleepMed, a national diagnostic and treatment services supplier for sleep clinics. Any sleep-deprived person can experience these symptoms, says Jennifer James, registered polysomnigraphic technician at somniTech Inc., a sleep disorders clinic in Overland Park. James says it's important to realize that people with sleep disorders are not sleep deprived. They have good sleeping habits, but still feel sleepy.
Sleep disorders are as prevalent as diabetes, affecting about 10 percent of Americans, and can diminish health and increase the risk of accidents at work, at home and on the road. Drivers who fell asleep at the wheel caused 897 accidents in 2002 according to the Kansas Department of Transportation's 2002 Kansas Traffic Accident Facts. Of the 88 documented sleeping disorders, experts say that 84 of them are known to affect daily life. Sleep disorder sufferers are hard to pick out because they don't appear ill, but they are closer than you think.
Ashley Smith, Tulsa, Okla., sophomore, had 37 absences her junior year of high school because sleep was her enemy. It took her mother an hour and a half to get her out of bed every day. Although each one of her absences was in her trigonometry/pre-calculus class, she still earned a high B. She was not a lazy adolescent; she had sleep disorders.
Although Smith had good sleeping habits she went to bed at a reasonable hour and got about eight hours of sleep she could not wake up for anything. If she was up late working on a project, it took her hours to fall asleep. Smith and her mother knew that there was more to her sleepiness than sleep deprivation. She spent two nights at a sleep lab in Tulsa to find out the cause of her problems and she was diagnosed with three sleeping disorders: sleep apnea, periods of stopped breathing during sleeping; light insomnia, difficulty falling or staying asleep; and symptoms of narcolepsy uncontrollable sleepiness and frequent daytime sleeping.
Smith's sleep disorders have affected her daily life. One weekend when she was in high school, she had
an incident with her parents' house alarm. With the alarm's speaker in her room, Smith's parents accidentally set off the alarm as they were leaving to run errands.
"Itwasgoingoffforthreeorfourhoursand I didn'thearitatall,"she says.
She now has an alarm clock that deaf people use to awaken them. In addition to a loud ring, the clock flashes a bright light in her face and shakes her pillow, but she says it still takes her 20 to 30 minutes to wake. Because of her alarm, Smith has her own room in her sorority house.
Sleep disorders have no known cause or cure, but they can be treated. Different treatments are used for different sleep disorders ranging from prescription drugs and nutritional supplements to psychological therapy and alternative medicine such as acupuncture.
Although Smith's problems are due to true sleep disorders, sleep deprivation is the bigger problem for most of us. Only 15 percent of Americans are getting adequate sleep, says Carol Guillaume, sleep specialist at Watkins Memorial Health Center. Sleep specialists use the term sleep hygiene to refer to sleeping habits. Just like brushing your teeth or flossing twice a day, good sleep hygiene is something to practice each day, just as you would for any physical hygiene, Guillaume says.
Nine hours is ideal for a night's sleep, Guillaume says, but because the college lifestyle doesn't always leave room for nine hours of sleep, there are steps you can take to get better sleep out of the hours you do have. Sleeping in regular, solid blocks, establishing a winddown routine before sleeping, and making your bedroom conducive to sleep are the three best ways to get better sleep.
Try to get to bed about the same time each night and wake at the same time. By establishing a routine sleep cycle, your body will know when to sleep and when to wake up,making you feel more rested when you wake. Guillaume suggests resisting the urge for long naps 30 to 45 minutes is OK — during the day, as they can throw off your sleep cycle. Keep a journal of your sleeping habits so that you can describe your sleeping habits to your doctor if need be.
Even if you feel exhausted after a busy day, stress can keep you lying in bed awake for hours. Try creating a rou-