College Student Sleep Deprivation
Sleeping in has always played a major role in my weekends. However; ever since I became a college student, the chances of being able to sleep in past 9 a.m. have become slimmer than ever. All college students experience a lack of sleep in some shape or form. Whether you’re interning, working a full-time or part-time job, taking more hours than you can handle, raising children or ANYTHING else, you have realized just how few hours of sleep you can function on; the number usually being around 4 or 5.
I am a senior at UHCL and will be graduating in May. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to have a part-time job, take 19 hours and intern 15 hours a week. Why I chose to do ALL of this in my final semester? I couldn’t tell you. Apparently, we are supposed to get 7-9 hours of sleep every night to be successful and productive the entire next day. However; that is almost always impossible for college students.
My week consists of waking up on Monday at 6 a.m. in order to be in Galveston by 8:30 a.m. for my internship. I stay and work all day until I head to UHCL for my 7 p.m. class. This usually gets me home around 10:30 p.m., where I usually fall asleep around 11:30 after I get everything prepared for Tuesday. My Tuesday’s involve me waking up at 4:30 a.m., because I have to be at my part-time job by 5:15 a.m. After work, I have class and various other duties to perform throughout the day. This routine continues up until the weekend, where I spend my entire weekend working at my part-time job, going to church and attempting to have some sort of social life. However; my social life is no where to be found, because there simply is no time left in the day for fun.
After ALL of my responsibilities for the week are taken care of, I some how manage to fit in a few hours of sleep here and there. Needless to say, I hardly ever get the proper amount of sleep every night. I know for a fact that I am not the only student to experience this problem, because at one point last semester, a group of kids were passing out 5-hour energy shots in the parking lot of campus. I also realize that I am not the only student who has become dependent on energy drinks and coffee.
My lack of sleep sometimes gets the best of me. On the days where I am running on 4 hours of sleep, I become cranky, delirious and short-tempered. When I talk to my friends and family about my routine and lack of sleep, they always seem to give me the same advice: “Make time for sleep! Prioritize your social life and take naps!” While this advice is helpful, it simply isn’t practical for a college student. The only advice that I seem to listen to is to simply get over it, sleep when you can and watch for the light at the end of the tunnel. I only have a few more months before I am done with college forever! While I am sleep deprived now, I won’t be after May. And once I graduate, I am going to take ALL of that other advice and get some sleep!!! I will then apologize to all of my friends and family for my crankiness and short temper.
