2008 Woodie Awards
Sleep improves memory, study skills
Andrew Beam
Issue date: 12/7/07 Section: FUSE
Originally published: 12/6/07 at 6:35 PM EST
Last update: 12/6/07 at 6:34 PM EST
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As college students, the bedtimes your mother gave you have been thrown out the window.
There is no such thing as a 10 p.m. curfew so you can get enough rest for school the next day.
As many college students stay up late cramming for the two exams they have the next morning or thinking about the giant final project they have yet to start, they may ask themselves, do I really need sleep?
For many, sleep may not even be a priority, but many studies have shown that a good night's rest is essential for the learning process because it is a time of renewal.
In a recent book titled "REM Illumination Memory Consolidation" written by author Timothy Walter, M.D., he discusses how getting enough hours of REM sleep affects memory.
While engaging in REM sleep, we are able to retain some of the memories through dreaming.
Plattsburgh State Director of Health Education Services Jerimy Blowers states that scientists can't point out why we need sleep. "We know what the benefits of sleep are," he said. "But why we need it, we don't know."
Blowers said there are the obvious results of not getting sleep, like being tired, irritable or feeling groggy.
Students can find, even when they stay up late studying or reading for a class, they find it hard to remember most of what they read the night before, or even earlier that morning.
PSUC freshman Stephanie Moon averages on four hours of sleep a day during the week, but on the weekend she is able to catch up.
"If I stay up too late, I can read something at like 4 a.m. and then the next day I won't remember anything about it," she said. "If I read it at a normal hour of the day and then go to bed late, I'm fine, but if I read it late I won't remember it." The book "Biological Psychology" by Stephen Klein and B. Michael Thorne of Mississippi State University cites a sleep study done by William Dement.
Dement, founder of the sleep disorders clinic at Stanford University, stated that 80 percent of college students are "dangerously sleep deprived." The study also shows this amount of sleep deprivation causes symptoms such as difficulty concentrating and increased mistakes. "They find people who don't get enough sleep, things don't function properly," Blowers said. "Everything from your metabolism of 36 simple sugars to the amount your brain can actually store information and process it."
There is no such thing as a 10 p.m. curfew so you can get enough rest for school the next day.
As many college students stay up late cramming for the two exams they have the next morning or thinking about the giant final project they have yet to start, they may ask themselves, do I really need sleep?
For many, sleep may not even be a priority, but many studies have shown that a good night's rest is essential for the learning process because it is a time of renewal.
In a recent book titled "REM Illumination Memory Consolidation" written by author Timothy Walter, M.D., he discusses how getting enough hours of REM sleep affects memory.
While engaging in REM sleep, we are able to retain some of the memories through dreaming.
Plattsburgh State Director of Health Education Services Jerimy Blowers states that scientists can't point out why we need sleep. "We know what the benefits of sleep are," he said. "But why we need it, we don't know."
Blowers said there are the obvious results of not getting sleep, like being tired, irritable or feeling groggy.
Students can find, even when they stay up late studying or reading for a class, they find it hard to remember most of what they read the night before, or even earlier that morning.
PSUC freshman Stephanie Moon averages on four hours of sleep a day during the week, but on the weekend she is able to catch up.
"If I stay up too late, I can read something at like 4 a.m. and then the next day I won't remember anything about it," she said. "If I read it at a normal hour of the day and then go to bed late, I'm fine, but if I read it late I won't remember it." The book "Biological Psychology" by Stephen Klein and B. Michael Thorne of Mississippi State University cites a sleep study done by William Dement.
Dement, founder of the sleep disorders clinic at Stanford University, stated that 80 percent of college students are "dangerously sleep deprived." The study also shows this amount of sleep deprivation causes symptoms such as difficulty concentrating and increased mistakes. "They find people who don't get enough sleep, things don't function properly," Blowers said. "Everything from your metabolism of 36 simple sugars to the amount your brain can actually store information and process it."
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