Explain briefly why as a young adult, sleep is important and what are the possible consequences of sleep deprivation as a college student? Getting 8 hours of sleep a day is very important, especially to young adults. Sleep comes with many functions that helps us, such as growth, learning and cognitive development. Sleep is crucial for young adults because they are in the midst of development and maturation, in this period there are a lot of changes in both mind and body so having enough sleep helps in strengthening the body for these changes. As college students, we tend to have minimal time for sleep or as some of us call it “luxury time”. Reasons can of course, vary from student to student but the most popular reason would be school works. Being a college student means we must prioritize our academic performance, it is used for our job resume in the future so it must contain good and clean record. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that as a nation, about 30% of adults (most are college students) lack sleep or has sleep deprivation. This comes out that about 31 million adults are sleeping less than 7 hours or has no sleep at all. What are the consequences of Sleep Deprivation to college students? To start off, lack of sleep can cause you to lose focus at class, wanting to sleep and also fighting sleepiness in the middle of class makes your brain lose its focus on listening to what is being taught. It can also affect our mental health, based on the research done by The National Alliance on Mental illnesses, 44% of students experience depression and 80% feel overwhelmed of their academic performance then lastly, 50% have experienced anxiety. Not only that, but studies have shown that sleep deprivation is a cause to an unstable mood or negative emotions, one is more prone in feeling restless and lack of interest in eating, socializing, losing awareness towards their own actions, etc. Another effect of Sleep Deprivation is drowsy driving. There are students who commutes on a daily basis to school and when they go home. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety stated that 16-24 year olds are 80% are more likely to experience drunk driving. Experiencing drunk driving is literally similar to being drunk while driving but without the alcohol part, they would lack attentiveness, road awareness, dizziness and have low decision making skills. This consequence not only affects them but also to those that are driving with them inside the vehicle or those on the road. Last but not the least, it doesn’t just affect you mentally but also physically. Weight loss, unbearable headache, low blood pressure and decreases your immune system, making you prone to illnesses. As a college student myself, I have seen these consequences listed above in my classmates, peers and even to myself. It affects not just our mind but above all, our health. The quote “Health is wealth” makes sense so much, because it proves that if we waste our lives trying to physically and mentally harm ourselves, our health would deteriorate and we won’t be able to press reset to go back to the time that our health is better than what it is in the present. The importance of knowing these consequences means that we can still help ourselves, they did say that prevention is better than cure so as much as possible, prioritize your health more and sleep for 8 hours a day. References: NCBI - WWW Error Blocked Diagnostic. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6301929/ Paprocki, J. (2021, May 5). College students aren’t getting nearly enough sleep. Sleep Education. Retrieved October 23, 2022, from https://sleepeducation.org/college-students-arent-getting-nearly-enough-sleep/
