College Students and Sleep

I oftentimes think back to my college days and am struck by how much my eating and sleeping habits have changed since then! Rarely did I go to bed before eleven pm, and sometimes it was quite a bit later. In that respect, college students really haven’t changed that much. New research shows that they are still involved in late-night cramming, parties, and other activities that keep them from getting the necessary amount of sleep. In fact, researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University have found that freshman who get fewer than six hours of sleep a night see a drop in their final grades and GPA. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says that college students should be getting a minimum of seven hours of sleep a night. But sleep tracking devices placed on research subjects found that the average bedtime is two-0-one am, and average waking time is nine-seventeen am. Parents, talk to your students about stewarding their God-given bodies with the proper amount of rest.