College Vices: Pick your Poisons Wisely

From marathon drinking bouts to caffeine-induced day-long study sessions, it is obvious that college students do not consider their health or sanity when making many decisions. As a vivacious and over-zealous college student, I attempt to cram everything I want to accomplish into what little time I have. My skewed sense of priorities usually results in too much studying during the week, and way too much partying on the weekend (as I am sure is the case with many students). But as the end of the semester approaches, and time spent studying overshadows time spent adventuring, it may be helpful to consider how these polar lifestyles can harm one of the most coveted commodities of college life – sleep.

I asked one of my GSI’s (Adam Krause, Drugs and the Brain), who studies sleep, about how the habits of college students can impact sleep cycles.

First, let’s look at how partying can screw up sleep:

“There’s a difference between light drinking before bed and binge drinking. A small dose of ethanol is not generally thought to be too detrimental, and eases the transition into the first stages of sleep. It gets metabolized fairly quickly so it doesn’t have quite a bad effect on overall sleep-architecture. Binge drinking, on the other hand, is clearly detrimental to sleep quality. Contrary to the college myth that alcohol makes you sleep well, alcohol drastically disrupts sleep. Due to its effect on GABA, glutamate, and adenosine, ethanol sedates the user and potently inhibits rapid eye-movement sleep, as well as disrupting the body’s circadian rhythm. Ethanol-infused sleep, therefore, is not healthy sleep, but rather sedation.”

In summary, a small nightcap will help you fall asleep without disrupting the sleep cycle. However, binge drinking is essentially sedation. Sleep after binge drinking is not sleep at all; important REM sleep is inhibited and the circadian rhythm (our body’s sleep clock) is disrupted.

Partying does not only typically involve massive amounts of drinking. It also involves staying up into the wee hours of the morning, which can also hinder your ability to get adequate sleep during the week.

In the words of Adam,

“This kind of of behavior disrupts the body’s endogenous rhythms (circadian rhythms). Every tissue in the body, including the brain, has a circadian rhythm which is tightly linked with sleep, eating, temperature, light, and activity patterns. Failing to maintain a constant rhythm by shifting your weekend sleeping habits can disrupt sleep in many of the same was a full sleep deprivation. It takes a few days to recover from such a large sleep-schedule shift, and given that students aren’t always sleeping enough during the week anyway, this sleep disruption can accumulate to cause more severe chronic problems, even eventually leading to greater risk of infection, cardiovascular/metabolic problems, and memory/emotional problems (among many other things…).”

Therefore, altering your sleeping patterns on the weekend can greatly disrupt your circadian rhythm, making it hard to be alert for those agonizing 8 a.m. classes, as well as potentially causing more chronic problems later on.

Partying is not the only choice that can severely disrupt sleep. Binge drinking’s ugly sister, over-studying, can also take its toll on the body.

Pulling all-nighters to cram information into your sleep-deprived brain will do basically nothing for you. Add massive amounts of caffeine into the equation, and you will really alter sleep patterns.

“Sleep deprivation is a powerful shock to the body and brain, affecting pretty much all systems. Just one night of sleep deprivation is not dangerous, and most people can deal with it just fine, but it does take a few days to fully recover. Students studying should be more careful though, because sleep is especially crucial for memory consolidation, attention, cognitive flexibility, and even creativity. Although many think they can study for an exam the night before by staying up all night, they are actually doing themselves a disservice because they are ensuring that the information won’t stick and that they will be at a cognitive disadvantage. Imaging studies show that the prefrontal cortex is one of the most susceptible areas to sleep-deprivation disruption. It is known that the PFC is involved in high-level cognition and executive function. There is also evidence that a night of sleep deprivation can make people crave high-calorie, rich foods, and it is thought that long-term sleep problems are causally associated with obesity and diabetes.”

So not only will cramming and all-nighters hinder your ability to remember the information that you tried tirelessly to retain, it will make you crave Twinkies and Cheetos.

And then there’s the beloved drug of university goers everywhere, caffeine.

“Coffee is a strong inhibitor of sleep through its antagonism at adenosine receptors. Now, a cup of coffee in the morning does not really affect sleep the following night, but the real problem comes when you ingest caffeine too close to your bed time. Caffeine has a half-life of approximately 6 hours, so there is a wide period of time during which sleep can be negatively affected. It delays the onset of sleep and increases arousal during sleep, generally leading to disrupted and low sleep quality.”

The bottom line: drinking coffee endlessly will ultimately decrease the amount of good sleep you can get. Caffeine will keep you awake during the day and restless during the night.

Every college student has been lectured on the importance of finding a balance in life, and this science backs up that timeless mantra. While this is nearly impossible for the majority of students, being aware of your activities and how they influence your body and mind is a tangible goal.

As we head into the last stretch of the semester, with this information in mind, make sure to pick your poisons wisely.

 

All photos taken by Caliber Photographer Jonathan Reader.