Effects of Sleep

The Effects of Sleep on Academic Performance
Introduction:
Sleep is a meaningful part of a human’s life, yet an adequate amount of Americans have experienced disruptions from sleep. The more sleep people continue to give up throughout the week, the harder time it gets to catch up with the right hours of sleep. The loss of sleep does not only cause health issues, but also the affects the potential perform any responsibilities.
As students grow older, they tend to believe that the less they sleep, their academic performance will reflect their hard long working nights. Yet, they are not aware of the importance of keeping a sleeping schedule. Certain amount of sleep is suggested to have everyday in order to move on to your next days. As a college student, I have always questioned how sleep can relate to obtaining academic success. The health issues that sleep produces make it harder for students to perform most of his/hers’ activities daily. The loss of sleep causes students to feel tired, drowsy, and nervous. These symptoms make students have a difficult time concentrate and focus in learning any educational material. Usually, your academic performance won’t have a good outcome because “ sleep serves not only a restorative function for adolescents’ bodies and brains, but it is also a key time when they process what they’ve learned during the day.”(National Sleep Foundation, 2000) The effect of not obtaining enough sleep and balancing out a successful academic performance is not healthy. It can cause different types of symptoms such as sleeping disorders, insomnia, etc. The health issues that sleep produces make it harder for students to perform most of his/hers’ activities daily. The loss of sleep causes students to feel tired, drowsy, and nervous. These symptoms make students have a difficult time concentrate and focus in learning any educational material. A student’s neither brain nor body is fully functional to achieve intellectual duties when giving up the sufficient amount of sleep that is recommended.. Usually, your academic performance won’t have a good outcome because “ sleep serves not only a restorative function for adolescents’ bodies and brains, but it is also a key time when they process what they’ve learned during the day.”(National Sleep Foundation, 2000) The practice of learning and memorization are the essential of academic success. For the most, teenagers sacrifice their sleep because they are pressured into balancing a social life and “good” grades. Research Question:
To what extent does sleep correlate with a student’s process of learning and academic performance?
Literature Review: Study shows that sleep has a significance role in the process of the ability to learn and the ability to memorize educational information. For instance, “students who got a good night’s sleep after seeing the puzzle fared much better than those asked to solve the puzzle immediately” (Epstein, 2000). Also, “during deep sleep the billions of individual nerve cells in the brain synchronise their electrical activity to some extent”(Martin, 2002). The capacity of memory is affected by sleep because sleep deprivation affects your brain function and cognitive performance. The memory of a student is broken up into two different types: procedure and declarative memory. Procedure memory focuses on how you perform a task or skill, mostly using physical movements. Declarative memory knows information like facts and events. The effects of sleep deprivation are on “brain regions and neuronal substrates involved in memory processes”(Hagewoud, 2009). In this case, the ability to learn consistently uses declarative memory. Sleep deprivation “affect the formation of memories that require the hippocampus”(Hagewoud, 2009). When students experience sleep deprivation a night before performing a learning task, they are most likely not going to be able to process the educational information in their brain region. The less sleep a student continues to have the less that their AMPA receptor will be able to function accurately. Researchers conducted an experiment where they had 44 students participate in two learning activities that would test there “episodic memory-encoding task” between a certain range of time with a group that would take naps and the other group was awake all night. (Hagewould, 2009) Sleeping late at night and having to wake up early the next morning “ conform to the changes in episodic learning observed in the current study, including the spindle relationships and their associated current source in temporal lobe”(Mander, 2011). In addition to sleep affecting memory capacity, sleep deprivation can make students have poor academic performance. “According to the National Sleep Foundation, 59% of adults 18-29 years of age describe themselves as night owls,(Gaultney, 2010), because of so much sleep loss they have. Students do not understand that “ the brain learns when its time to sleep from the lessons it receives. Teens need to give the brain better signals about when nighttime starts…”(NSF, 2006). Study shows that students with less sleep have worse academic grades than the ones that actually get the decent hours of sleep. Also, different measures have proved how the different sleeping patterns students have doesn’t allow students to completely execute to their best abilities in their education. The deprivation of sleep “ affected school performance through lower grades; decreases alertness and concentration; and an increase in anger, impulsivity, and sadness.” (Noland,2009) For the most part, students that experience “all nighters” tend to have trouble paying attention in class and “ work to their fullest potential in school”(Noland, 2009). Students tend to sleep less than 8 hours, where usually the ending 2 hours of sleep have the significance to be able to learn and memorize better. (Noland, 2009) When having less sleep the night before students will often have caffeine drinks to help them stay up the next day and be able to expose good academic abilities in schoolwork. The effect of having a high consumption of caffeine is gaining weight from the sugar and calories, which then leads students to experiencing stress. The restrictions in having enough sleep has a significant role for students with their learning and academic performance.(Noland, 2009) These different effects of sleep loss show how potentially a student can work the next day at school. Each student has to take in consideration that “sleep occupies about one third of each human life.”(Martin, 2002) Most of my research tends to emphasize the idea that students will be able to successfully achieve high grade point averages and good involvement in school when having the right amount of sleep. Students in college will always tend to put their academic grades before even thinking of gaining their six to eight daily sleeping hours. Unfortunately, not sleeping affects their academic achievement drastically because when attending class the next day they do not have energy to pay attention, and at this point of the time caffeine will only make them have a sugar crash. Several studies have proven the importance of sleep and positive outcome in grades, yet students prefer to get sleepless nights and average grades. Is it worth giving up so much sleep in a week? Why do students not understand that sleeping each night will not only boost up their grades, but will make them feel more positive through out the day. Sleeping each night is the fuel to the fire of great academic performance.
Methodology:
In order for me to find out how sleep correlates with the ability to learn and academic performance, I will go to the UCSB library and ask a large amount of college students if they are willing to contribute to my survey. The survey will ask a group of questions that relate sleep to academic performance and learning ability. The first question is how significant is sleep in your daily life to see if sleep is even an important aspect to them. Then I will lead on to the question of how many hours do you sleep on a daily basis. A sleeping pattern should stay consistent. Next question will ask college students how often do they have to pull an “all nighter” because of procrastination. Students tend to leave everything till the night before it is due. The following question is when sleeping less than fours hours, how well are you able to pay attention, which will show if the students’ tiredness is seen in class. Also, I will ask students how their academic performance is when they have more than fours of sleep to see if good sleep connects with good grades. The survey will also ask how well are you able to pay attention when you sleep more than fours hours, which will evaluate the different levels of the ability to potentially focus in class whether you have sufficient sleep or not. Lastly, how often will students use their free time to get sleep, which will evaluate to what extent are they willing to sacrifice other things for sleep. These survey questions will evaluate how effective sleep relates to the ability to learn and academic performance.

Bibliography

Epstein, L (2002) Improving sleep. L.Beherens & L.J. Rosen (Eds.), Writing * and Reading Across the Curriculum (pgs.316-322). Longman:Boston

Foundation, N.S. America’s sleep-deprived teens nodding off at school, behind the wheel. L.Beherens & L.J. Rosen (Eds.), Writing and * Reading Across the Curriculum (pgs.323-329). Longman:Boston * * Gaultney, J.F. (2010) The prevelance of sleep disorders in college students: impact on academic performance, Journal of American College Health, 59(2), 91-97. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database

Hagewoud, R. Havekes, R. Meerlo, P. Novati, A. Keiser, J.N. Van der zee, E. (2009) Sleep deprivation impairs spatial working memory and reduces hippocampal AMPA receptor phosphorylation. Sleep deprivation and memory. 19, 280-288. Retreived from Academic Search Complete database *
Mander, B.A. Santhanam, S. Saletin, J.M. Walker, M.P.(2011) Wake deterioration and sleep restoration of human learning. Current Biology.21(5), 183-184. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database * * Martin,P (2002) A Third Life. . L.Beherens & L.J. Rosen (Eds.), Writing and * Reading Across the Curriculum (pgs. 312-315). Longman:Boston *
Noland, H. (2009) Adolescent’s sleep behaviors and perceptions of sleep. Journal of School Health. 79(5). 224-230. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database *

Bibliography: Epstein, L (2002) Improving sleep. L.Beherens & L.J. Rosen (Eds.), Writing * and Reading Across the Curriculum (pgs.316-322) * Gaultney, J.F. (2010) The prevelance of sleep disorders in college students: impact on academic performance, Journal of American College Health, 59(2), 91-97. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database Hagewoud, R * * Martin,P (2002) A Third Life Noland, H. (2009) Adolescent’s sleep behaviors and perceptions of sleep. Journal of School Health. 79(5). 224-230. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database *