IT'S ABOUT that time of the year that first years receive the shock treatment. After the first semester of college, one learns the hard way that work and play must be balanced. If the typical student has wised up, he has identified more than a few obstacles to overcome.
My main problem is that I never fully appreciated the benefits of sleep until this year. Above all else, a good night's sleep is one of the most important things to get, and this is the ultimate reason why time management is such an important concept. Sleep is one of the most overlooked aspects of college life, and one that many students cannot afford to ignore.
I'm sure all are familiar with the following picture: the caffeine drugged college student, hovering over books lit by an overhead light at a wooden desk, slowly going blind by the computer's light and the rising sun in the window. Such a student then will stagger into class with eyes crossed and feet shuffling. A person can hope to learn little at all that day, which then will culminate in the student playing catch-up. Thus, he will repeat the hopeless procedure numerous times during the semester. All of this is avoidable through time management and the ability to put work before pleasure.
In a survey done by the National Sleep Foundation, 60 percent of teens polled complained of feeling tired during class, with 15 percent claiming that they fall asleep in class. According to the Web site www.sleepamerica.com, the average teenager needs nine hours of sleep a night and should not drink caffeine within five hours before going to bed in order to function at top condition. While this is ludicrous and unrealistic for a college student based on the workload alone, it is something interesting to keep in mind in the midst of pulling an all-nighter.
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It also is notable that researchers in New Zealand and Australia have done studies on sleep deficits, and have found them to be just as potent, if not more potent, as alcohol. A study reported by CNN shows that a person who gets less than six hours of sleep a night is subject to huge impairments in judgment. More specifically, such people were given a road test, which shows they routinely did worse in coordination than someone with a .05 percent blood alcohol concentration. The legal limit in some states is .08 percent, and this test did not account for those who accumulate an even larger sleep deficit over time.
Clearly, the only way to fix this is to achieve a balance between work and play, and this only will be possible if the two are separated. It is the most natural course for a student to want to do something other than work when confronted with alternatives. All too many times, the typical student begins written work with textbook in hand, the Instant Messenger on, and music playing on the stereo. This, in itself, lacks logic. In such a situation, a person doesn't focus exclusively on either work or pleasure. Thus, a clear line must be drawn between work and play, and students should never venture to mix them.
Naturally, there are people who would oppose an argument that supported the recommended amount of sleep for college students. One such argument against sleep comes in the form of a study that was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, which claims that less sleep actually is better for a person. It says that those who sleep more than 8 hours a day have a 12 percent chance of dying five to six years earlier than those who sleep approximately six to seven hours a day. While the results are interesting, many sleep experts have questioned such claims. The New York Times reported on Feb. 15 that not only was the study not originally geared toward determining life span, but it also does not account for quality of sleep or the bias of personal testimonies.
Other people would point to the fact that college students, who are in the prime of their lives, are not living life to the fullest underneath the covers. However, the opposition to this argument is that a greater focus should be placed on quality rather than quantity when it comes to life. It defeats the purpose of "living life to the fullest" if one is too tired to enjoy it in the first place. In a noisy dorm where distractions and stimuli abound, sleep should be seen as relief rather than a waste of time.
So the next time the urge to aimlessly kill time comes around, keep in mind the effects that extreme sleep deprivation can have. From this, one can decide whether it is truly worth it to kill that time, or if there is a better use for it. Many first-year students probably have learned this lesson the hard way, and it is the delicate balance between work and pleasure that keeps the creme de la creme successful in this university.
(Kevin James Wong's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at kwong@cavalierdaily.com.)
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