Sleep Deprivation In College Students

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Kaytlyn Gramling
Ms. Bott
English 101
21 November 2014
Sleep Deprivation
College students are often waking up groggy to their morning classes, which could last from one hour to four hours, causing a decrease in concentration or even sleeping in class. There are many causes to having sleep deprivation that affect the lifestyle of these students and their sleeping cycles. There are an abundance of college students who are partying all night, staying up late to finish homework assignments, or don’t have a good sleeping environment resulting in sleep deprivation.
Most universities are known for their rank in the party spectrum. Parties can be both good and bad, one can be just a gathering and socializing until it’s time to head out, but then the other
kind of partying can be with alcohol where time slips away.
Time is uncontrollable, and when you lose track of time there’s no turning back. It also doesn’t help when students drink on a
Sunday or any other day when they have class the next morning because they either sleep in and don’t go to class, or they are sleeping in class, decreasing their ability to take in what the professor is teaching them.
Class can take up a good chunk of a college student’s morning or afternoon, and partying may take up a good portion of their night, so when do the students find time to complete their homework assignments? The answer to that may vary depending on each student and how his or her priorities are in order. For the most part, students will stay up even later than they have to in

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order to complete an assignment, or even having to wake up earlier to finish so at least they got a few hours of sleep. Sometimes when I have something important to do that I started, I will wake up earlier than my alarm clock instead of staying up all night, so I know what that feels like, and it’s not a pleasant feeling. Just like myself, other college students may have a job or families that they need to tend to, so homework is not first on their priority
list.
There may be other causes of sleep deprivation rather than a priority list. If your college roommate is a partier who doesn’t come back until midnight, or is keeping their light on in order to finish up something for class, that disrupts your sleep. Having your sleep cycle being disrupted messes with how your body functions and how you’re going to act throughout the next
day.
There is no way around being able to function correctly without sleep. Little sleep causes more grogginess as the day goes on, that is how most people most people end up with sleeping problems. On the other hand, someone can’t blame all their problems on another person, so sometimes it’s our own fault for getting ourselves into a bad sleeping cycle. We have so many distractions around us sometimes it’s hard to fall asleep, even when we are dead tired. I often find myself saying, “One more episode then I’ll go to bed.” Or “One more round of this game then I’m going to bed.” It’s always one more this, and one more that, then ends up being much more than one, which definitely affects my attitude the next day.
It’s important to know when to stop and when to stay its time to go. Time is very valuable, but sleep is more. Students live very stressful lives and we sometimes think it’s fine to do this to our bodies now because we are young, but it’s not. Actually, we are making it much harder to function properly, which is why students need to take it down a notch. It’s time for

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students to figure out their top priorities and take charge of them because nobody wants sleep deprivation to control their lives.