Friday 12 October 2012

Tips for staying healthy on campus - sleep

Here's the second of a series of tips for staying healthy on campus, put together by Cindy Dring of Student Services Health Promotion: 

Try to get 7-9 hours of sleep per night
Getting enough sleep not only contributes to how you feel and perform the next day, but also has a huge impact on the overall quality of your life. Sacrificing sleep means you are sacrificing your chance to live up to your fullest academic and creative potential.

Sleep is essential for good health, mental and emotional functioning, and safety. Research indicates that sleep loss impairs your ability to perform tasks involving memory, learning, and logical reasoning, which may contribute to unfulfilled potential at university and strained relationships. Insufficient sleep can also be extremely dangerous, leading to serious or even fatal accidents.

It should take you fewer than 30 minutes to fall asleep, and you should wake up feeling refreshed. Stress is the most common cause of insomnia.  Alcohol may accelerate falling asleep, but it also disrupts normal sleep patterns and suppresses restful REM sleep, even when the alcohol has been eliminated from your body. Alcohol also makes it difficult to wake up in the morning, even if consumed in moderate amounts.

If you have sleep problems that have lasted a week or more, contact Cindy.

If you've found this article useful you may want to check out: 
 
For more on how to look good, feel good and be in charge of your life as a student at NUI Galway check out Student's Services Health Promotion
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