Sleep Health & Why You Should Care

by commentnewspaper

By Jesse Sewall
Special to the Comment

When college students are lumped together and stereotyped, sleep deprivation is usually at the top of the list, along with binge drinking, being poor, and partying too hard.
Sleep health is important, and usually one of the first sacrifices made in the college student’s schedule. Time management is much easier when you add a few more hours to every day, right?
It’s important to understand that a good night’s rest has to be a priority, though. Lack of sleep has an abundance of physical and emotional health risks: a weaker immune system, increased stress, increased weight gain, lowered academic performance, increased fatigue throughout the day, and depression and anxiety.
When health professionals recommend ways to get those 7-8 hours, they usually involve getting some sort of ritual going for your bedtime.
Loud noises and bright screens are bad. If you’re a self-diagnosed insomniac, maybe check and see if you’re playing Call of Duty until you hopefully doze off, or are sitting on your laptop until you pass out. These actions stimulate your brain and prevent you from falling asleep.
If you need to be asleep by a certain time, maybe try something crazy and dust off that textbook that’s been sitting above your desk all semester. Yoga, meditation, and deep breathing exercises before bed are all helpful for telling your brain it’s time to power down.
Cool it with the late night snacks and caffeine, and try to keep your bed use limited to sleep and sex. You have to train your brain, go Pavlov on it and classically condition. If you only use your bed when it’s time to sleep, your brain makes the association that it’s time for bed when your head hits the pillow.
Students from HEAL 450: Health Promotion Strategies will be at ECC and RCC from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Nov. 13 and Nov. 20, hosting tables to help with some sleep health awareness. Prizes and games will be included, so be sure to stop by.
Also, keep an eye out for posters, flyers, and the like going up around campus this month.

This article was submitted by the HEAL450: Health Promotion Strategies class.

+ posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

National Security Vs Freedom of The Press

On September 18th of this year, President Trump announced that three news sources, those being CNN, MS Now, and Politico, were banned from the White House, effective immediately. This instantaneously shook the media, as people questioned whether it was constitutional or not and if this was an infringement on “freedom of the press”. The next […]

by Ryan Benoit

Netanyahu’s Visit to New York Results in Protest

In January of this year, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani publicly demanded the U.S. federal government honor the warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court for his continuous attacks against Palestine. On September 24th, Netanuyahu visited New York to present himself to the United Nations, causing both a historic walkout […]

by Isabella Cicconi

“Scrubs Off Strike On!” MGB Nurses Announce Strike Date

Last Friday, October 2nd, Brigham and Women’s Hospital nurses officially set a date for their recently authorized open-ended strike. The strike is scheduled to begin on October 14th and will continue until both Mass General Brigham, and the nurses can agree on a contract. The vote to authorize the strike resulted in 93% support for […]

by Michael DuPont

ICE Raids Rock New Bedford

On September 21st, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) started to make arrests in New Bedford, MA. On September 24th, the New Bedford Police department released a memo, instructing officers to comply with any Judicial warrants. As of September 30th, at least thirty-four people have been detained. An exact number has been difficult to retrieve. One of […]

by Madisyn Sentes and Sunni Shroff