The Importance of Sleep for Students

Sleep zzzzzzzzz…. for Success

I don’t think you have ever heard anyone saying that you should sleep to be successful. Well, it’s true- get the right amount of sleep and you will gain an overall advantage.

Like the old saying goes early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.

Students have a very hectic life. It can be very stressful at times. Balancing a busy schedule without much relaxation can often lead to nervous breakdowns.

The key is to have a good amount of rest and relax to de-stress. The importance of sleep for students cannot be neglected.

Sleep is important not only for students but for every age. However, in this article, we stress the importance of sleep for students. This is because we know exactly what a student goes through in a day and it’s not a smooth ride. In all the chaos of a day, it is very important to get a good night’s sleep.

Top 6 Important Benefits of Sleep for Students:

1. Improves Immunity

One of the benefits of sleep for students is that it builds immunity. Studies have shown that sleep boosts the body’s immunity.

In the journal of experimental medicine a study has shown the contribution of T cells in the body’s response to a foreign attack.

T cells are one of the important white blood cells of the immune system and play a central role in the adaptive immune response.

Studies showed that T cells of sleeping people showed higher levels of activity than in those who remained awake.

Therefore, it can be concluded that sleep has a positive impact on T cells that has a direct correlation to the upkeep of the body’s immunity system.

2. Stress Buster

Why is getting enough sleep important for students? Well, one of the reasons is that lack of sleep causes stress. Stress can be defined as the way your body and mind react to certain adverse situations.

The relation between sleep and stress has been enumerated in an article published in sleep.org. Stress and sleep share a complicated, possibly bidirectional relationship.

Stressful life events can interfere with the hormonal processes that guide healthy sleep cycles and reduce your overall sleep quality. Studies have also shown that not getting enough sleep, especially on a regular basis can increase your stress level during the day.

Therefore, since sleep and stress have a multidirectional relationship, improving one can positively affect the other.

3. Your Memory Scores Higher

It is scientifically proved that sleep improves memory. A study conducted at Beth Israel Deaconnes Medical Centre experimented on twelve healthy college students.

These students were taught a sequence of skilled finger movements, similar to playing a piano scale. After a 12- hour period of either wake or sleep, respectively, the subjects were tested on their ability to recall these finger movements while an MRI measured the activity of their brain.

According to Walker, who is also an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, the MRI results showed that while some areas of the brain were distinctly more active after a period of sleep, other areas were noticeably less active.

But together, the changes brought about by sleep resulted in improvements in the subjects’ motor skill performance.

There is also evidence to prove that sleep is crucial for consolidating our memories. The research results are published in Biological Psychiatry: The research concluded that Sleep is crucial for consolidating our memories, and sleep deprivation has long been known to interfere with learning and memory.

Now a new study shows that getting only half a night’s sleep – as many medical workers and military personnel often do – hijacks the brain’s ability to unlearn fear-related memories. That might put people at greater risk of conditions such as anxiety or posttraumatic stress disorder.

So, sleep on it students. Your memory power improves.

4. Physical Advantage

Sleep contributes to the overall development of mind body and soul. Sleep relaxes a physically tired body.

It also results in a reduced risk of obesity and improved regulation of fat mass. Sleep also ensures the optimum functioning of the cardiometabolic markers.

A dysfunctional Cardiometabolic profile could include the following:

• Obesity
• Increased blood pressure
• Insulin resistance
• Glucose intolerance
• Proinflammatory state
• Prothrombotic state

Research published in the National Library of Medicine concluded that longer sleep duration and higher sleep efficiency were associated with a more favorable cardiometabolic profile in early adolescence.

These results support the need to assess the role of sleep quantity and quality interventions as strategies for improving the cardiovascular risk profiles of adolescents.

5. Elevated Moods

The importance of sleep for students is evident in the fact that it results in elevated moods. It calms the brain and relaxes the body thereby giving you a feeling of freshness.

There is nothing like a new and renewed feeling every morning. Good sleep rejuvenates the mind and throws away the lethargy.

Lack of sleep or disturbed sleep causes irritation and mood swings amongst students. Students could appear to be lethargic and unhappy without proper sleep.

6. Affects Your Grades

Lack of sleep affects your performance in college. It affects your grades. Sleep deprivation does not allow the brain to function normally thereby affecting your studies. This directly affects your performance in examinations.

Now that the importance of sleep is well established. It’s good to look at the adverse effects of the lack of sleep. Lack of sleep can be the cause of several ill effects.

There are many cases where lack of sleep has caused fatal ailments.

Let’s look at these adverse effects of the lack of sleep.

Adverse Effects of Sleep Deprivation Among Other Disorders

• Negativity and Pessimism
• Increases the chance of obesity
• Mental health problems
• Poor academic performance
• Causes accidents
• Affects the decision-making process

The importance of sleep for college students cannot be undermined. It is one of the most important factors in a student’s life.

In fact, as important, if not more important than studying or writing an assignment. So, how do we ensure that you include good sleep in your schedule?

Few Points that Can Help You to Get That Right Amount of Sleep

1. The Perfect Sleep

Hours of Daily Sleep

The Mayo Clinic in Rochester released a chart that included the right amount of sleep for different age groups.

So, make sure you get the right amount of sleep according to your age group. Although it may not be possible to get the exact number of hours for a perfect sleep try and ensure you get this sleep most days in a week. This chart is a statistical sleep fact for students.

Looking at this chart, it is evident that if you nap during the day, you cover most of your required sleep for the day and may find it difficult to get good sleep at night.

Therefore, avoid sleeping during the day to get good sleep at night. Use your day for all your activities, hobbies, and talents. Use the night to get a good sleep. Appropriate sleep hours for students is important

2. Dim the Light

The level of light or darkness around you has a direct impact on your pattern of sleep. Notice how you are active during the day and feel sleepy during the night. There is a scientific reason behind the same.

According to an article published in Darkness Matters – How Light Affects Sleep (mysplus.com) Melatonin, a hormone produced in the brain’s pineal gland, is often known as the “sleep hormone” or the “darkness hormone.” Melatonin influences sleep by sending a signal to the brain that it is time for rest.

This signal helps initiate the body’s physiological preparations for sleep—muscles begin to relax, feelings of drowsiness increase, body temperature drops. Melatonin levels naturally rise during the early evening as darkness falls and continue to climb throughout most of the night, before peaking at approximately 3 a.m.

Levels of melatonin then fall during the early morning and remain low during much of the day. Evening light exposure inhibits the naturally timed rise of melatonin, which delays the onset of the body’s transition to sleep and sleep itself.

Therefore it is safe to say that managing the light in your room has a direct impact on the level of sleep. Dim the lights for better sleep.

Protect the quality of your sleep by preventing unwanted bright lights. Sleep importance for students cannot be undermined.

3. Avoid Caffeine – Related Food and Beverages

Caffeine is known to be a stimulant. This means that it increases activity in the brain and nervous system.

It also increases the circulation of chemicals such as cortisol and adrenaline. Large doses of caffeine can make you feel anxious and result in difficulty in sleeping.

According to a medically researched paper, the stimulating effects of caffeine causes alertness and is even known to drive away the feeling of drowsiness and tiredness.

4. Go Gadget Go

Since we now know the sleep importance for students, we should know how we can achieve this. One of the foremost reasons students do not get good sleep is because of the excessive use of gadgets like mobiles.

Students have the habit of browsing the internet on their phones just before they go to sleep. This has proven to harm sleep.

Research conducted by medical professionals of the sleep foundation studied the effects of Long Time Mobile Phone Use (LTMPU)on students.

The research concluded LTMPU resulted in sleep disturbances and mental distress and discontinuation of LTMPU resulted in improvement of these conditions.

The findings highlighted the critical role of the prevention of excessive mobile phone use.

5. The Right Atmosphere

Setting the right environment for your sleep is the perfect solution for good sleep. A bright noisy room is less conducive to sleep than a darker quieter room.

Make sure that you make the conditions perfect before you try to get a good sleep. Your pillow and mattress should suit your body style.

Set the temperature of the room to an optimum level. Ensure that you are comfortable when you are in bed. Lighting in the room is also a contributing factor.

Bright lights tend to disturb the pattern of sleep. Dimmer lighting allows your brain to relax and thereby helps you to rest and sleep.

6. Eat Right

Eating the right kind of food at the right time is also another way to induce good sleep. Eating a large meal just before going to bed may be too heavy and uncomfortable.

Thus, not allowing you to sleep soon. Ideally eating a light snacky meal at sunset and maintaining a large gap between your dinner and sleep time ensures better sleep.

Conclusion

The importance of sleep for students and adults alike is well established. Good sleep for the right number of hours benefits an individual both mentally and physically.

Sleep is required to feel renewed and rejuvenated. Students especially need the proper amount of sleep. The reasons are already explained above.

So, the first advice to students is not to ignore sleep. It is as important as eating good food and studying for good grades.

Without good sleep, good grades will not appear. Prioritising good sleep is like embracing self-love. It’s therapeutic.