Error 404 AM

The majority of my blog posts discussing the health portion of "College Health and Fitness" focus on diet and nutrition.  However there is another important health topic extremely relevant to college students that affects fitness performance as well as overall well being.  I know it may be hard to believe (as an Electrical Engineering student involved in ROTC and Greek Life, I find it hard to believe myself), but college students need sleep.  A lack of it, or even too much of it, can greatly affect fitness performance, cognitive performance, and overall health.  Several factors contribute to "Error 404 AM: sleep not found."  I will address causes of and potential solutions for sleep deprivation that I have encountered during my [at times not so] glorious college career.

 

Featured Health Topic: Sleep

Causes of and Potential Solutions for Lack of Sleep

 

1. There are not enough hours in the day:

As the chart above illustrates, it is hard to balance academics, social life, and sleep; not to mention having to find time for physical training.  In order to make time for everything, I started setting aside a minimum of 6 hours of sleep a night no matter what.  If I had to be up by 8am, that meant I was in bed before 2am; no exceptions.  Additionally, I viewed physical training as part of my academics.  Not only does working out reduce stress and increase focus (both important with respect to academics), it also increases your quality of sleep and helps you fall asleep faster which is important when you do not have hours to spare lying awake in bed.

2. Unable to fall asleep:

Stress, poor diet, and lack of exercise can all add to inability to fall asleep.  For me, this usually occurred when I neglected my fitness training several days in a row.  Although it is not always easy to do, if you can consistently eat healthy and exercise (which should take care of the stress) you should not have a problem falling asleep and staying asleep.

3. Playing Catch Up:

I used to think that I could get away with little to no sleep during the week and "catch up" on the lost sleep on weekends by getting 10 - 12 hours of sleep at a time.  Unfortunately this is not true and oversleeping can actually made it harder to form regular sleep patterns, causing you to sleep less during the week.  Even if I did not get enough sleep during the week, I made it a habit of not sleeping more than 9 hours a night on weekends.

As a final remark, if you are serious about improving the quality of your sleep, or just want to try out a cool smartphone app, SleepCycle can track your REM sleep (illustrated above) and quantify your sleep quality based on duration and level of sleep.  Also, you can specify a window of time during which you to want to wake up and the app will wake you up when you are closest to being awake, making it easier to wake up without feeling groggy. 

Final approach in sight. Over and out.

MJH