Sleep, Stress, and Study: How Poor Sleep Habits Affect Academic Performance
Does sleep play a big role in a person's life? A good night's sleep contributes to success in professional and personal life. Sleep helps brain cells to restore their efficiency, actively absorb nutrients, and accumulate energy. It is sleep that creates a feeling of freshness, vigor, and a surge of strength. If you sleep well and get enough sleep, you can not be afraid of being overworked. Most importantly, sleep is the key to health. But what do we know about it?
A person spends a third of their life sleeping. Sleep is a natural process of the body being in a state of minimal brain activity and with a reduced reaction to the outside world; sleep is inherent in all mammals, fish, birds, and even some species of other animals. It is during sleep that a number of important hormones are produced, tissue regeneration occurs, and physical strength is replenished.
Sleep plays a vital role in students' lives. Unfortunately, they often neglect to sleep at night for various reasons. One of the most common is doing homework that is due tomorrow. Luckily, there is a smarter way out of this situation. For example, you can buy a term paper online at a special writing service. In this case, you will have more time for both sleep and other more enjoyable activities than doing homework.
Sleep and Academic Performance
Let's look at the research that was conducted to study sleep problems in university students. The results of the study revealed sleep and wakefulness disorders in most students, which has a huge impact on their physiological and mental state. Based on the data obtained, it can be said that not only the duration of sleep is the main source of disorders and problems. Also, there are many associated factors, such as dreams, illnesses, conditions, sleep hygiene, etc.
If there is no harmony between all these components, then there is a decrease in academic performance, quality of life, deterioration of cognitive activity, and mood – the consequences of this disorder.
Thus, sleep is an indispensable aspect of life, and its duration, "purity," plays an important role in the development and formation of the body. If you have been diagnosed with any sleep disorders, you should not immediately switch to drug therapy; you can first use more simplified, basic methods, such as:
- Going to bed and waking up should always happen at the same time, do not make exceptions even for weekends.
- Daytime sleep is contraindicated for adults unless it was prescribed for medical reasons.
- Bed is a place for sleeping, not for eating, watching TV, and studying. An exception may be reading relaxing literature.
- Before going to bed, it is recommended to carry out a preparatory ritual consisting of a walk in the fresh air, a bath or shower, and passive rest.
- The air in the sleeping room should be cool, humidified, and free of irritating odors.
- The last meal should be taken 2-3 hours before bedtime; the exception is soothing herbal teas or milk with honey.
- After 5-6 p.m., you should refrain from smoking, drinking coffee or alcohol, or other stimulants of the nervous system.
In extreme cases, when corrections to the regimen, physiotherapy, etc., do not help, it is necessary to switch to drug treatment.
What Does Lack of Sleep Lead to
Sleep is often neglected under the misconception that it is a waste of time or just a break from work or study. In reality, sleep is one of the most important processes during the day.
When you sleep, the body regulates the work of its systems; one-fifth of the blood in the body flows to the brain, helping it perform tasks vital to our survival. Sleep energizes the body's cells, removes biological traces of daytime activity from the brain, and consolidates our knowledge and memories from the entire day. In addition, good sleep helps regulate mood, appetite, and sex drive.
If you don't sleep enough, your body's important functions only work partially. Problems accumulate, and your body malfunctions.
If someone is forced to stay awake 24 hours a day, their cognitive abilities become similar to a person with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.1%. In other words, the brain behaves like a drunk due to lack of sleep!
Such circumstances can also lead to hallucinations, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar levels. All of these affect academic performance and life expectancy and increase the risk of developing diseases.