Rossi Cao
Professor Gina Ryder
Writing For Science
11/3/19
Topic Stress and Mental Health
Connection of Stress and Sleep in Students
With the lack of sleep students get, we can factor out that stress is a part of the reason why some students have a lack of sleep. Having that lack of sleep can decrease motivation in classes causing them to drop their grades. Its found that freshman college students are more prone to stress because of the transition from high school to college by the research of Ross, Shannon E, Neibling, Bradley C and Heckert, Teresa M. Being that all transition from one thing to another leads to stress that would lead to one of the factors of insomnia or lack of sleep. The connection of insomnia can be different for each person both male or female. Other research will show the effect of these stress levels on students and their grades and the statistics on how other types of stress habits can fall into the connect of sleep and stress. Having this information at hand, many of the students don’t know how to manage both their levels of stress and sleep.
Both male and female groups have different sleep patterns that lead to them being stressed out. One study that had a study with 237 students from 18-24 years old showed that there was a gender difference between female and male sleep patterns. Female students would have a poor quality of sleep more males because they would wake up earlier and more negative thoughts. There are many other differences between males and females is that males have a stronger sleep quality and rise time, time a bed and sleep were more efficient than females, meaning that they’re not as stressed out. It still leads to the idea that the lack of sleep can cause problems for both genders. Even with this difference, it all depends on what day it is or what they were currently doing before they sleep. Each grade is different being that freshmen students have less sleep time than other students on weekdays and that seniors have longer sleep latency on weekends. (Sleep patterns in college students: Gender and grade differences).
Having that lack of sleep can lead to the potential effect of their grades dropping because of the lack of concentration in class. From the authors Mickey T. Trockel MS, Micheal D. Barnes Ph.D. & Dennis L. Egget Ph.D., where they sampled 200 students that live on campus where they learned that specific wake up times can have different effects on your grades. Being that particularly wake up time have been associated with higher grade point average while later wake-up time can lead to a lower great point average those being student who has volunteered or working. (Pages 125-131) The authors have pointed out different variables that can be associated with these late wake-up times being “exercise, eating, and sleep habits; mood states; perceived stress; time management; social support; spiritual or religious habits” (Health-Related Variables and Academic Performance Among First-Year College Students: Implications for Sleep and Other Behaviors) Understandably these activities can impact stress being that students don’t have time to study is that they stay up late causing them to have even more lack of sleep.
One of the top common sources of stress according to the research of Ross, Shannon E, Neibling, Bradley C and Heckert, Teresa M. showing the ratio of 20 males and 80 females that 89% had change of sleeping habits being at the top followed vacation/break 82%, 74% being change in eating habits and 73% being responsible and class workloads. In other words from these researchers, the change in these habits have a greater effect on students in college, with sleep habits being at the top it creates this domino effect that goes on into the other common sources of stress examples being workloads and responsibilities. These statistics can go into different levels of factors but sleep is one of the main reasons for these increases in stress levels. (Sources of stress among college students)
Looking over all this research about stress and its connection to the lack of sleep it’s a common thing for students to have. Through all this information and the results of these experiments is that people need to be informed about time management. With the lack of sleep, these students have, and other factors like classes and work it would create this mental effect where stress can pile up and create an endless cycle when sleep and stress go back and forth on each other. There have been more experiments in the connections of sleep and stress being done on rats to compare it to humans in a real-life experiment where they would be sleep deprived for 72 hours showing that it has dropped memory levels. If this works on animals it would on humans staying up late to study without any sleep can make them lose focus more than remembering what to study for the next test. (Role of hippocampal oxidative stress in memory deficits induced by sleep deprivation in mice)
There are many ways that college students combat stress by changing their sleeping habits, eating better or even exercising. Having said that there are still many that are less informed about how to manage their time. From this research we can conclude that there are many transactions from changing schools, a new job, doing something new can lead to the deprivation of sleep that would evolve into higher amounts of stress in these college students. To manage these levels of stress, they need to understand the source of it and take control and learn when they do make time by creating a schedule or doing it before the time that its due and learn of when and where they should do it. With this research in hand, it can create a difference in informing college students of how they can create a better time for themselves so they can decrease their stress levels, by doing so they can have more free time to do what they want instead of doing things last minute.
References
Shannon E., Ross, et al. “Sources of Stress among College Students.” College Student Journal, Project Innovation, 1 June 1999, www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-62839434/sources-of-stress-among-college-students.
Silva, R.H, et al., “Role of Hippocampal Oxidative Stress in Memory Deficits Induced by Sleep Deprivation in Mice.” Neuropharmacology, Pergamon, 6 Feb. 2004, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390803004684.
Trockel, Mickey T., et al. “Health-Related Variables and Academic Performance Among First-Year College Students: Implications for Sleep and Other Behaviors.” Taylor & Francis, 24 Mar. 2010, www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07448480009596294.
Tsai, Ling-Ling, and Sheng-Ping Li. “Sleep Patterns in College Students: Gender and Grade Differences.” Journal of Psychosomatic Research, Elsevier, 4 Mar. 2004, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022399903005075.
