Lack of sleep decreases academic performance
Lack of sleep can lead to a decrease in academic performance due to adverse effects on attention span and physical health.
Most college students do not reach the number of hours of sleep recommended for their age group, which can have academic consequences.
According to the Mayo Clinic, adults should sleep at least seven hours a day in order to have optimal brain and physical function during waking hours.
A survey on sleep issues showed that college students on average sleep 6.5 hours each night.
Dr. Karen Wilson, a clinical psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, attributes the rise of inadequate sleep amongst teenagers to the increasing usage of technology and social media.
Cell phones emit the shortest possible wavelength in the visible spectrum called blue light and frequent use of cell phones increases one’s exposure to blue light.
Blue light has been shown to suppress the production of melatonin, which is a hormone that controls the body’s circadian rhythm. A shortage of melatonin makes falling asleep more difficult.
Adequate sleep is critical for removing toxic waste and processing memories from awake hours. During sleep, the brain disposes of misfolded proteins through the glymphatic system. This process is most efficient when asleep.
Lack of sleep results in an accumulation of these misfolded proteins, which in turn, increases toxicity levels in the brain. These toxins are responsible for decreased attention spans and forgetfulness in the classroom.
Students who do not get adequate sleep each night suffer from decreased attention spans and forgetfulness in the classroom.
“Even just an hour difference in sleep can make a difference with attention and cognitive functioning,” Wilson said.
In addition to being critical for disposing of misfolded proteins in the brain, sleep is also necessary to learn and encode new information.
Memory is encoded best during the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep. The first REM cycle normally starts 90 minutes after one falls asleep and lasts about 10 minutes.
Each subsequent REM cycle is longer than the previous one and can last up to an hour. If adequate sleep is not reached, the brain does not have enough time to reach the final cycles of REM.
“The first thing that we've learned is that you need sleep before learning to actually prepare your brain, almost like a sort of a dry sponge, ready to initially soak up new memories and lay down those new memory traces in the brain,” said Dr. Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.
During REM sleep, short-term memories are moved from the prefrontal cortex to long-term storage in the hippocampus.
Furthermore, inadequate sleep can lead to other effects that may affect academic performance, specifically sickness.
During sleep, the body releases proteins called cytokines, which signal the immune system to release disease-fighting cells and facilitate the growth of red blood cells.
When one is sick or injured, cytokines are necessary as a signaling protein to jumpstart the body’s immune response. Without adequate sleep, not enough cytokines will be produced to fight off the sickness or inflammation, resulting in a weakened immune system
The immune system’s main response to sickness is the production of B and T cells.
B cells are responsible for the production of antibodies that attack the disease’s antigens. T cells fight off diseases by binding to and killing infected cells.
A weakened immune system has less B and T cells to protect the body against diseases, and may increase susceptibility to diseases such as pneumonia, meningitis and bronchitis.
“It's a dangerous thing. You know, when you fight biology, you normally lose,” Walker said. “And when you lose, the way that it's usually revealed is disease and sickness. And unfortunately, that's what we see with insufficient sleep.”
