People often say when it comes to
college you have to choose between good grades, a social life, and sleep. I spend many nights at the library until two,
maybe three, even four o’clock in the morning and I am not alone. It seems as though most college students
neglect the sleep option in order to get a paper in on time or to go out with
friends on the weekend. The question
though is how does neglect of sleep affect us?
According to an article written by
Amie M. Gordon (PhD) for Psychology Today,
sleep deprivation has a severe effect on mood. There have been multiple sleep studies where
participants were brought into a lab and they are kept up through the
night. These studies all report the same
thing, people who have not slept feel more irritable. Further tests have shown that sleep
deprivation is also associated with feeling more depressed and being more
emotionally reactive to situations.
The
reason for this? It all goes back to the
Amygdala. Sleep deprivation is believed
to increase the right amygdala activity and prevent its regulation. The right amygdala is said to control
negative emotions so this means that your negative emotions are flowing even
more rapidly with increased activity and your brain has more trouble regulating
them. According to Gordon, not only does
sleep deprivation affect your negative moods by increasing them but it affects
your positive experiences as well.
People who are sleep deprived are less likely to have a positive
response to an achievement, they’re simply too tired to care. If you’re feeling depressed, tired, and angry
then you’re going to have a much harder time feeling excited about
something. If you stay up until 4 am to
finish a paper, are you going to feel proud and fulfilled? Mostly likely not,
you’re going to feel tired and mad that you haven’t slept yet.
Now college students, ask yourself
this, is sleep deprivation worth it? If
you are skipping sleep to go out with friends but the result of missing sleep
makes you incredibly irritable and unfriendly, what’s the point? How well do you expect to do on an assignment
when you are in an absolutely rotten mood?
If am so tired and grumpy that I can’t stand the sight of another human
being, there’s no way I’m going to be in the mood to study or write a
paper. Bottom line: SLEEP! It’s
important, both for yourself and those around you.
Article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/between-you-and-me/201308/all-night-the-effects-sleep-loss-mood
Picture: http://www.mytechbits.com/category/science/page/174/
Meagan,
ReplyDeleteI really love the topic of sleeping. It's really interesting when we can relate sleep deprivation to emotions. The amygdala surely plays an important role in this topic. People can get extremely irritable if they don't get enough sleep. In high school, I had mild insomnia. For some reason, I just could not sleep enough at night. I was either tossing and turning or wide awake. This caused me to fall asleep in class, uncontrollably. No matter how hard I tried to keep my eyes open, my head would fall and my eyes would close. I feel like college is much better since I only have to set an alarm twice a week for Tuesday/Thursday classes. On days where I've had to wake up early for an event like a race, driving out of town, etc., I've noticed I get awfully grumpy. In order for us to function properly, we must get a certain amount of hours of sleep a night and somewhat stay on a circadian cycle. I'm sure you've heard of the circadian cycle, but here's an article that relates to what your topic is.
https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/sleep-drive-and-your-body-clock
This article explains how one's body is like a clock and we need sleep at certain times in order to function properly and get sleep the next night.
I have always scolded my friends for pulling "all-nighters" before a huge exam to try to get as much studying done as possible because I know how terrible that is for their brain! Instead of feeling confident before the exam, they feel exhausted and nervous, which really impairs their performance. Although I am guilty of not getting enough sleep everyday, I do prioritize sleep when major events in my life are near. For example, the night before the ACTs I took a warm bath, drank some chamomile tea, and went to bed early enough to get a full 8 hours of sleep. I also gave myself a lot of time in the morning to eat a fulfilling breakfast, drink some green tea, and even do some relaxing yoga stretches. I had been practicing for the ACTs for months prior, so I knew the best thing to do was to relax my nerves and stimulate my brain so it can function properly. My score was one to be proud of and I felt calm and positive during the entire exam. This article speaks truth.
ReplyDeleteGreetings to another Loyola library dweller!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your post. I work 15-20 hours a week,commute and I'm taking 17 credits right now. I pushed working at my job to the weekends which means that my weekdays are filled with me trying to finish everything before the weekend. Although I love my job and I enjoy being kept busy, it's a little overwhelming sometimes and sleep is often sacrificed. On the days that I don't sleep as much, I'm definitely more irritable and it takes longer to find something to be grateful for. The days that I'm overwhelmingly tired, I take a little nap in one of the lobbies at Loyola and it's amazing what a small nap can do for the rest of the day.
Thanks for an interesting post!
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ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. I'm currently in brain and behavior class where we discussed a fMRI study related to this. Healthy college students were split between well rested and sleep deprived groups. They were shown images that increasingly became more traumatic and gruesome. The sleep deprived group showed 60 percent more amygdala activity relative to the normal well rested population's response! It's interesting that despite there being so many studies about how lack of sleep effects our physical and emotional health but as a society we are sleeping less hours.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed a difference in my mood when I'm not sleeping as much. I seldom go out with friends because I work on the weekends, volunteer as a cheer coach for my grammar school, and go to school 5 days a week. If I end up going out I don't get much sleep, and with my busy schedule it's hard to catch up on sleep if I miss a day. I have seen in myself that I get agitated easier than I would have if I were well rested.
ReplyDeleteI work as a bartender my shift starts at 5pm and ends when we close (Fridays and Saturdays it's at 3AM every other day 2AM.) I work Sundays and Mondays until close which desperately messes with my sleep schedule. On Mondays I get up at 6:50AM to make my 1.5 hour commute to school. Coming home after 3:00pm doesn't give much room for a nap before work since I leave at 4:00pm in order to be on time. Then on Tuesday I wake up at 6:00am in order to get to school on time for my 8:00am class. I often find myself trying to keep awake during class and getting grumpy on the train when someone breathes too loudly. I can definitely relate to the findings in this study. Anyone can be a victim of sleep deprivation which makes this study relatable and an interesting read.
Also, I was always taught that cramming is not good for someone. So if you're one to stay up late the night before trying to absorb as much information as possible you should maybe prioritize a few things in your life. Studying with enough time to actually sleep before the exam is good for your memory. Your brain needs to rest in order to store information better. I haven't looked into this, but I learned that in my abnormal psych class. It makes sense though, so everyone get some sleep!
This post is extremely relatable- I'm not surprised it's received so many comments!
ReplyDeleteAs a fellow college student, it definitely seems like the largest struggle is balance. If you're not able to fit in enough time for studying and homework, quality time with friends/significant other, a job, and personal hobbies/clubs/interests you feel like you're missing something important and that everyone else must be better at time management than you are. In reality, we're all dealing with the same struggles.
We've recently learned in class that the amygdala is the center of anxiety, fear, and related to sadness as well. This makes perfect sense but I've never thought to look into the relationship between amygdala activity and sleep. When you're extremely tired, it's borderline impossible to feel capable of regulating your emotions, especially when you're engaging in a stressful activity such as studying. Also, in a physiological psychology class at my previous school (transferred in as Loyola's brain and behavior course), we learned the important relationship between REM sleep and memory consolidation. So the lesson learned here is for us to all stop spreading ourselves so thin and get some sleep! Overall, very interesting post.
Now knowing that the amygdala is active during times of sleep deprivation, it all makes sense why people become so irritated and just generally are unpleasant to be around when they are tired. As someone who is very familiar with opting to skip sleep to do homework, being tired and trying to function is not a walk in the park. My mood shift is very noticeable and is often paired with splitting headaches. Sleep deprivation has very profound effects on the brain and honestly, it's just not worth it sometimes. Doing homework when well rested and awake is way more productive than doing it when tired. Information is not getting absorbed when the brain is overworking itself just trying to stay going.
ReplyDeleteYour blog post highlighted a lot of negative responses that the body had to sleep deprivation, showing how stressful of an effect it can have. Seeing all of these things makes me realize how much sleeping more hours could help us all with everyday functioning.
With midterms and second rounds of exams having just passed, I can completely relate to this, as can most, if not all, college students. It amazed me to hear that the amygdala was affected because of this lack of sleep. Having just learned what the amygdala does, it makes sense that not sleeping would make us grumpy. Sometimes though, even if we do not go out or take a break, we are still in need to do work (whether it be school work or actually working). How does consuming coffee and energy drinks, which are packed with sugar and caffeine, affect the brain? Does it also affect the amygdala?
ReplyDelete