This piece of news ought to be paid attention to by all the adolescents as it may be quite pertinent to them. A study claims that college students are apparently receiving 45 minutes less sleep per night as compared to 40 years ago and two hours less than the nine advocated by the National Sleep Foundation. This may augment the risk of motor vehicle accidents.
Experts apparently requested around 1,000 undergraduates to fill in a diary first thing every morning for a week to document the amount and quality of their sleep and their utilization of drugs and alcohol to modify sleep patterns. The subjects also apparently replied to queries associated with drowsiness and driving.
It was seen that the outcomes seem to display a worrying trend. Roughly 60 percent of students supposedly apply stimulants and around 18 percent use medication or alcohol to battle their normal sleep-wake cycle and to balance their jobs, social activities and study load.
The uneven sleep patterns, increased on the weekends and ensuing sleep deprivation may result in depression, headaches, poor academic performance and social skills, and daytime sleepiness; therefore, the car accidents. The authors also discovered that males appeared to be almost twice as anticipated to use alcohol as a sleep aid as compared to females and a third more expected to fall asleep at the wheel.
Daniel Taylor, lead study author and an assistant professor at the University of North Texas, commented, “This study supports what many others have found: insufficient sleep is epidemic. It is perhaps more problematic in young adults because their coping methods — alcohol and substances, skipping homework/class or just pushing through their sleep — set them up for such severe consequences such as addictions and potentially fatal car crashes.â€
As sleep deprivation in college students may have such extensive consequences on society, it was advised that students ought to concentrate on ways to perk up the duration and quality of students’ sleeping habits and take them away from their dependency on drugs and medication to run their lives.
The study appears in the Journal of Adolescent Health.