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In the Race
Now, here, you see, it takes all the blogging I can do to keep in the same place. If I want to get somewhere else, I must blog twice as fast as that! You see, I'm in the Red Queen's Race...
Please, Just Get Some Sleep!
By Janet Evans
Wednesday, Oct 1 2008, 06:45 AM
(Jupiter Images)
You said it to them when they were young, and they did everything they could to keep those heavy eyes from shutting so they wouldn’t miss any of the excitement going on in the family. Bedtime just seemed too early when they were little.
When they were teenagers you were probably saying the opposite in the morning, trying to get them out of bed. Morning for them was probably 1:00 p.m.
Now in college with so many options for activities to participate in and studying to do, there isn’t much time for any sleep, especially with early morning classes. If you thought it was important to tell your kid to get some sleep when they lived at home, it’s even more important to tell them now. Chances are they won’t listen, but hopefully you may get some help from their college.
From the Boston Globe:
"It's an age-old predicament: Caffeine-fueled college students cramming for exams and writing papers until the crack of dawn, then skipping or snoozing through classes. Sleep deprivation has long been considered a rite of passage, a point of pride even.But now, alarmed by recent studies tying lack of sleep to poor academic performance, college officials are urging students just to go to bed. More than a dozen Massachusetts schools have begun waging campaigns touting the benefits of sleep through dorm seminars, posters, and catchy slogans like, "Want A's? Get Z's.
"Wellesley College spreads the message by throwing dorm pajama parties with tea and popcorn. Tufts University passes out sleep masks, ear plugs, and a CD of relaxation tracks. Bentley College holds a weeklong contest called the Biggest Snoozer, and gives away memory foam pillows and white noise machines to students who log the most hours of shut-eye. And Massachusetts Institute of Technology has enlisted the help of far-flung parents, alerting them to watch for warning signs such as e-mails sent at 4 a.m.
"For college students, sleep is the most dispensable thing," said Dr. Vanessa Britto, director of health services at Wellesley.
"Most people feel it's a badge of honor. 'I didn't sleep. Parentheses, aren't I great?' Until you point out to them that pulling an all-nighter is the equivalent of driving drunk and is detrimental to their reaction time and memory.
"Universities, though, have their work cut out for them to change such a culturally ingrained habit on campus.With 24 hours of online entertainment available, students today are tempted by myriad diversions other than school books. They're gambling, catching up on their favorite television shows, playing video games, or chatting with virtual friends - then trying to study into the wee hours of the morning.
"It's like, well, I could do my calculus homework or it sounds like the girls next door are doing something fun so I'll just walk over there," said Kelsey Barton, a freshman at Tufts, who said she has been averaging about three hours of sleep a night since starting college this month.
"I don't want to miss out."With so many distractions, Barton often doesn't start on schoolwork until midnight, when she's so tired that it takes her even longer to finish. She downs coffee and Mountain Dew to make it through classes and cross-country practice."It's a cycle that I'm now kind of stuck in, and I get more and more tired," she lamented.
College officials say more students seem to be getting stuck on the sleep-deficit treadmill. Skimping on shut-eye has become such a concern that the American College Health Association revamped its annual health survey this fall to include six questions focused on sleep instead of one, said Mary Hoban, director of the Baltimore-based National College Health Assessment."
Continued (page 2)
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