It’s known that the average sleep someone should get is around eight hours, but recent studies have shown over one third of adults in the United States get less.
Around 34% of adults in the U.S. experience some form of sleep deprivation, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Sleep and Sleep Disorders webpage.
Sleep deprivation can also lead to sleeping disorders including insomnia, according to a Dec. 15, 2021 Healthline Media article.
Research found that poor sleep can also affect academic performance and have an overall negative affect on mental health, according to a March 16, 2022 Columbia University Irving Medical Center How Sleep Deprivation Impacts Mental Health webpage.
For college students and young adults, consistently getting the recommended amount of sleep can be challenging.
San Jose State kinesiology senior Jules Garcia said he usually aims for six-to-eight hours of sleep, unless there’s something stressful coming up soon.
“I try to [study] before I go to sleep, but stress and anxiety catches up to you sometimes and you’re like, ‘I feel like I didn’t study enough,’ ” Garcia said. “So I tend to stay up late more to study even more, kind of overwork my brain.”
Business administration sophomore Mikayla Lillie said she was diagnosed with insomnia when she was in elementary school.
Insomnia is one of the most common sleep disorders that can cause difficulty falling or staying asleep, according to a Jan. 16 Medical News Today article.
Lillie said her insomnia went away eventually, but it came back in high school.
“It started again with anxiety and, like, school and stuff because I would stay up thinking about everything I needed to do, everything that was coming up and, just like, not be able to sleep,” she said. “For me [insomnia] comes and goes with my stress level.”
Roughly 10% of the general U.S. population is diagnosed with insomnia, while roughly 26.4% of college students in the U.S. experience insomnia, according to a Sept. 15, 2022 CDC research article.
Lillie said she averages around five hours of sleep on weekdays because she’s a full-time student and has a full-time job.
The recommended amount of sleep is seven-to-nine hours for young adults, according to a March 9 National Sleep Foundation article.
The National Sleep Foundation is a nonprofit organization that claims to provide expert information on health-related issues concerning sleep.
Studies have shown that sleep is correlated with short-term and long-term memory, which can affect a student’s academic performance, according to a Feb. 13 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article.
Research done on freshmen college students found that every hour of lost total average nightly sleep was associated with a 0.07 reduction in GPA by the end of the semester, according to the same article.
SJSU behavioral science senior Anderson Huynh said his regular routine is what helps him maintain a healthy sleep schedule.
“Usually I watch a stream before I go to bed and because I do it so often now, when a stream is on, I start getting sleepy,” Huynh said. “When I have anxiety for exams and tests my thoughts are, like, ‘I need more time to cram before it happens.’ ”
An annual survey on sleep found a link between sleep and symptoms of depression, according to a March 9 National Sleep Foundation news release.
In a National Sleep Foundations poll, results show that nearly 65% of adults who are dissatisfied with their sleep experience mild or greater levels of depressive symptoms.
Those who reported that they have high levels of healthy sleep behaviors reported no significant depressive symptoms.
“I was also diagnosed with ADHD . . . and I do have bouts of depression that comes and goes,” Lillie said. “When I’m sick or anxious, if I’m feeling depressed and my ADHD starts acting up – it’s, like, that trifecta that really makes it impossible for you to sleep.”
A CDC study also found that students who have depression or ADHD, also known as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, have significantly higher odds of showing signs of insomnia, according to the Sept. 15, 2022 CDC research article.
Lillie said some of the things that help her fall asleep include turning off her phone, listening to relaxing sounds and reading a book.
“I will just read until my eyes can’t stay open anymore,” she said. “Sometimes it takes hours but that’s, like, sometimes the only tuning that will let me calm down.”
