Sleep While You Can!

Dear College Students,

Do not waste your sleep! According to Schlarb et al. (2017), “60% of all college students suffer from a poor sleep quality, and 7.7% meet all criteria of an insomnia disorder”. Every day, students have been rejecting sleep due to homework assignments, midterms, and finals. Students do not realize the luxury of sleep and only see time as money. As a matter of fact, students would always fight against the clock as they cut their sleeping time as a mechanism to increase time for their academics. Hence why, students do not realize the importance of sleep. Sleep can do so much more than you think. Let’s go explore!

As a Berkeley student myself, it is hard to sleep. It is extremely hard. I struggle to get that 8 hours of sleep every day. I have disregarded sleep as my lowest priority until I have learned and recognized how precious sleep is. Especially now in quarantine, you have all the time in the world to be able to have your beauty sleep. Get your sleep before Covid-19 ends!

First, the definition of sleep or circadian rhythm is a recurring state of relaxation that switches between two cycles: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM sleep. REM sleep is a deep sleep where dreams occur, while non-REM sleep is a shorter sleep where you can easily be awakened. In general, sleep is your biological body clock. Each person has a different yet similar biological clock depending on age and factors influencing the person’s body and mind. For example, there is a difference between night owls and early birds. Additionally, there is a difference between a baby versus an adult. The cycle of sleep is unique for everyone.

Although sleep is unique and different for each person, sleep as a whole is important to everybody. The benefits of sleep are unlimited. Sleep can impact and affect many fields of a person’s body and life. Worley (2018) claims that sleep can contribute to many factors such as boosting the immune system, strengthening the heart, improving memory and attention, increasing mood and productivity, increasing awareness and performance, and many more. For instance, even bodybuilders or anyone trying to gain muscle or not lose weight need sleep. According to Chen and his colleagues (2017), sleep can prevent weight gain and is where muscles relax and grow as tissues repair themselves especially on a good sleep quality that lasts 7 to 8 hours; even a short sleep duration can be a risk of decreased muscle.

Having a good amount of sleep is good, but having a little amount of sleep is bad. Sleeping less is an issue itself. Sleeping less plays a role in your circadian rhythm. This sleep rhythm is like a repeating pattern or a realistic clock. If you break that pattern or any parts of the clock, everything will go to ruin. Everything will stop working. If your sleep is off, your whole system suffers. This includes your hormone levels, digestive system, immune system, and other systems in your body. Most importantly, sleep affect the brain and mind as a whole. And when the brain is included, your whole body is included because the brain is the core of your body just like how the motherboard is the core of your computer. Studies and research illustrate that lack of sleep can increase mental illness and health problems such as cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety, and more. Overall, sleep is a major variable in having a healthy lifestyle, body, and mindset.

You cannot make up for lost sleep. Reset your biological body clock and start a consistent sleep schedule and commit to that. Do whatever you can to get yourself to sleep. Turn off your lights and devices, play music, or tire yourself out with activities. Once you are committed to your sleep, you can easily make this into a habit to the extent that this can be permanent in your life. Since we have all the time in the world in quarantine, start now! Use this precious limited time to sleep before you have to go back walking on campus struggling to get to your classes and discussions.

Love,

Someone Who Cares.