Sleeping Disorders and Its Impact on Academic Performance

 Sleeping is an important physiological process for good physical and mental health of a human being. The academic performance and mental cognition of students were found to be negatively impacted by sleep problems, including poorer sleep quality, later bedtime, and daytime sleepiness, according to numerous researches.

University students tend to suffer from problems of sleep regularity, quantity and quality, which can affect their academic performance. That is why many college students could have sleep disorders, and those at risk may also be at risk for academic failure. A common sleep problem among college students is sleep deprivation and resulting excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). Deprivation is influenced by both biological and social causes.

The International Classification of Sleep Disorders categorizes three types of sleep disorders: dyssomnias (which may produce EDS), parasomnias (which usually are not associated with EDS), and medical / psychological disorders. The first two categories are primary disorders of sleep, whereas the third category includes conditions that are often associated with disrupted sleep. Also, some sleep problems have been associated with deficits in attention, drowsy driving, risk-taking behavior, depression, impaired social relationships, and poorer health. (Suardias et al., 2020) Poor sleep among college students not only causes physical and psychological morbidities but also has an impact on cognition, learning, and memory. Inadequate sleep impairs cognitive function and has been associated with poorer academic performance in higher education students. There are very few studies that control for relevant background factors and include knowledge of sleep hygiene. A cross-sectional study with Japanese university students was conducted to investigate the impacts of sleep problems on daytime function in school life and in this study, the objectives were to clarify the prevalence of sleep problems such as insomnia, insufficient sleep, and delayed sleep-wake phase among Japanese university students, including and eliminating the sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle and sleep-related symptoms in each sleep problem. They also evaluated the association between the above sleep problems and daytime dysfunction in school life. In this study, sociodemographic information or lifestyle of the participants, and sleep-related symptoms were taken into account, but sleep-related symptoms were not confirmed by a face-to-face interview or a validated screening scale because this was the first study to investigate these symptoms and their associations with sleep problems. But they found that the sleep duration of Japanese students is shorter than that of university students in other countries because of the academic overload, occupation, and extracurricular activities that do not exist in other countries as an obligation. (Kayaba et al., 2020).

It is important to note that the development of sleep disorders and mood disorders also have a reciprocal effect on each other. When students begin to perform poor sleep practices, different chemical factors at the neurological level generate negative consequences at the physical and functional level. What initially begins with voluntary sleep deprivation can later develop into outright involuntary sleep disruption, requiring pharmacological assistance. The effect of chemical imbalance in substances such as serotonin and neurotransmitters during sleep deprivation is subsequently expressed in psychiatric conditions of anxiety, bipolarity and depression. In turn, merely developed depression leads to the inability to fall asleep, which gives an aggravating impulse to sleep disorders and these worsen the depression itself, becoming a cycle that can lead to fatal consequences.

According to the study Sleep Disturbance in Mood Disorders from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, 12% of people in the world may have the exact characteristics to develop a more complicated mood disorder due to their sleep disorder and, among the affected people, it is estimated that a range of 6% to 15% have the probability of committing suicide as the most fatal consequence of these bad practices. (Rumble et al., 2015) These stressful conditions, added to the existing stress in the students' academic loads, become a very dangerous fusion that can affect not only the academic performance of a student, but also their own life and the functioning of a country in general. The Sleep Disturbance in Mood Disorders study also raises the millionaire costs involved in the treatment of mood disorders as a result of sleep disorders, which amount to $14.1 billion annually for bipolarity and $36.6 billion annually for major depressive disorder. Budget that, by being allocated to this type of problem, reduces the funds that could be dedicated to a better investment in the educational system and other areas. With the semester drawing to a close, tens of thousands and thousands of university college students are getting ready to take their very last checks. Unfortunately, studies is an increasing number of display that increasingly more college students are not getting enough sleep. That may have a terrible effect on their grades. Among the reasons for those adjustments in dozing styles are accelerated part-time running hours, pulling all-nighters to complete a paper or cram for an exam, and watching TV at bedtime. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), the first-rate manner to maximize overall performance on very last checks is to try and get an excellent nighttime of sleep. (Epstein & Kushida, 2017)

Another current research outlines the bad effect of sleep deprivation on scholar instructional performance:

•Drowsiness and negative sleep are not unusual place amongst university college students and have an effect on educational overall performance and daylight functioning.

•Students with signs of insomnia are much more likely to perform poorly in topics which include math, studying and writing than college students without signs of insomnia.

•College students with insomnia have notably greater intellectual fitness problems than university students without insomnia.

The following tips are provided by the AASM to help students learn how to get enough sleep: 

• Go to bed early

Students ought to go to bed early sufficient to have the possibility for a complete night time of sleep. Adults need approximately seven to 8 hours of sleep every night time.

• Get out of bed.

If you have got the hassle of falling asleep, get away from bed and do something enjoyable till you feel sleepy.

• Stay out of bed.

Do not study, read, watch TV or talk on the phone in bed. Only use your bed for sleep.

• Limit naps.

If you are taking a nap, then maintain it briefly. Nap for much less than an hour and earlier than 3 p.m.

• Wake up on the weekend.

The best practice is to maintain your regular sleep and wake times over the weekend. If you struggled to get enough sleep throughout the week, you can try to make up for it this weekend. However, it would be quite difficult for you to wake up for courses on Monday morning if you sleep in later on Saturdays and Sundays.

• Avoid caffeine.

In the afternoon and at night, stay away from caffeine. It can be difficult for you to fall asleep because it stays in your system for hours.

Many students believe that sacrificing sleep to study for an assessment will give them a better chance of performing well, but not getting enough sleep actually worsens your cognitive abilities. A recent study showed that students who did not sleep at all before doing activities, requiring them to learn new information, performed significantly worse than students who slept (MCMaster University, 2018). Interestingly, these sleep-deprived students also thought they both performed better and put in more effort into activities than others to properly store the information that they had learned, reaffirming what studies have shown about the importance of a full night's sleep. (MCMaster University, 2018).

Interestingly, these sleep-deprived students also thought they both performed better and put in more effort into activities than others to properly store the information that they had learned, reaffirming what studies have shown about the importance of a full night's sleep.

How does sleeping improve your memory and performance anyway? All information is stored in neural networks of your brain. The stronger connections are, the easier it is to access this information when you are studying and learning new information. There's a possibility of it interfering with pre-existing neural networks to cope with this. Your brain temporarily stores the new information into an intermediate buffer; your brain then requires an offline mode provided by sleep to gradually integrate this new information with your pre-existing long-term memories.

Barahona (2018) in the research of Sleep Disturbance said that "Poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness are common in our medical student population, and are associated with a diminished academic performance, depressive symptoms and substance abuse." which also shows how this issue is leading to some other affections that will affect the development of the students. (Pag. 13)

References

Barahona, J., Aristizabal, J., & Hidalgo, P. (2018, July). Sleep disturbances, academic performance, depressive symptoms and substance use among medical students in Bogota, Colombia. Sleep Science, 11(4), 260 - 268. 10.5935/1984-0063.20180041

Epstein, L., & Kushida, C. (2017, November 6). College students: getting enough sleep is vital to academic success. AASM engage. https://aasm.org/college-students-getting-enough-sleep-is-vital-to-academic-success/.

Kayaba, M., Matsushit, T., Enomoto, M., Kanai, C., Katayama, N., Inoue, K., & Sasai-Sakuma, T. (2020, 03 20). Impact of sleep problems on daytime function in school life: a cross-sectional study involving Japanese university students. BMC Public Health, 20(March), 13. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-08483-1

Rumble, M. E., White, K. H., & Benca, R. M. (2015, December). Sleep Disturbances in Mood Disorders. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 38(4), 743-759. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psc.2015.07.006.

Suardias, M., Placencia, M., & Vela, A. (2020, July). Sleep and academic performance in university students: a systematic review. Revista Neurológica, (3), 43-53. https://doi.org/10.33588/rn.7102.2020015

University, M. (Director). (2018). Why healthy sleep is crucial for academic success [Film]. Demystifying Medicine MC Master. https://youtu.be/bom6ZrVwGIc