For Monday’s table talk, we discussed the reality of how much sleep college students really get, and what they should be getting. Sleep deprivation in the long run can lead to increased risk of obesity, cancer, and decreased immunity.

Personally, I strive to get a good 5-6 hours of sleep a night, so I was shocked to hear that the recommended sleep amount for college students was around 9 hours. I feel like this is something that is impossible, especially at Cornell. If I were to strive for 9 hours, I would have to cut something else from my daily routine, like going to the gym or taking that extra hour to review the work I’m currently doing in class.

I always believed that what determines how well you wake up/function was your REM cycle. After discovering when exactly I should be going to bed (to wake up at a certain time) allowed me to wake up more easily because I wasn’t interfering with my REM cycle. But who knows! Maybe it’s just placebo.

So next time you’re getting ready for bed, remember how your schedule works for you!

During our table talk on Monday, we talked about how common it is for college students to fail to get adequate sleep every night. According to Dr. Maas, college students should be getting 9 hours of sleep a night. Previously, I had always heard that each person’s sleep cycle was different, and quality of sleep depended most on REM cycles. I was surprised at how much sleep he said was required, as I can often sleep for far fewer than 9 hours and go about my day without being tired.

Since arriving to Cornell, I actually haven’t been so stressed out about monitoring my sleep schedule. In high school, the 7:30 AM start time, paired with daily late-night rehearsals and practices, sleep was scarce for me, and I only got 5 to 6 hours on average. At Cornell, I’ve been fortunate enough to start my days at 10 Am and sometimes even later, allowing me to sleep for 7 to 8 hours. However, when I do not sleep, I force myself to push through the day, as I do not like taking naps in the afternoon.

I thought some of the correlations and comparisons from the study were interesting. There is a high correlation between lack of sleep and being overweight. Additionally, 80,000 people fall asleep at the wheel each day, but this has never happened to me. In fact, driving helps to make me more alert of my surroundings.

Today’s table talk was one I was so excited to talk about. Before I became a student at Cornell, I always woke up feeling refreshed and ready to start my day. I currently wake up groggy and irritated for my morning classes. I felt like I never slept but when I tried to talk to my peers about it, they would tell me I had a lot of sleep compared to them. Was I just complaining?

As I talked to other Rose scholars I got a new perspective on it. There is a competitive culture at this University that makes you feel almost guilty about getting a full beds rest. Thinking you could study so much with that extra time. It’s like you win when you don’t sleep when all statistics prove otherwise. We talked about how 12AM deadlines are detrimental to our success. We are comforted about how much time we have to finish a project, but in reality it just makes us stay up all night to do one assignment. What about the architecture building hours? They are 24 hours. Does Cornell want students to stay in there forever, because that is the message they are sending out.

I know that time is money but sometimes it feels like Cornell does not care about our well- being if we are still giving homework’s on time.

I attended a table talk on sleep this past week and I thought it was interesting what everyone had to say. I think in our (college) culture, we all think sleep is a luxury, and according to some of the preliminary readings, the majority of people are sleep deprived/don’t meet the recommended 8 hours of sleep. That is not surprising at all to me.

In the past (last year I think), for one of the Rose Scholars posts I have written about stress/well-being and how we essentially live in a culture where we perhaps romanticize being overworked. “I only had 4 hours of sleep last night!” a student would say, and their friend would say “oh I only had 3”–who is more overworked is essentially a “competition”. I don’t think I saw this as dramatically within my own friend groups, but I know this type of conversation is definitely a thing here at Cornell.

I’ve been doing o.k. in my own sleep schedule this semester, (probably still falling short of the recommended 9 hours and 15 minutes–but I think I get close at around 8 hours a night) but there are definitely still times when I feel like sleeping is a luxury. “Oh, I should be doing this”, I would think, and feel guilty for sleeping 8 hours, but then I would remind myself that there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting sleep! Especially when I know that if I get to the point of being too sleep deprived, I’m more likely to catch a cold, burn out, or feel mentally drained.

Taking care of yourself is definitely one of the first things you should do when you’re in a high stress environment like Cornell. I don’t think everyone realizes that and I’m sure we (me included) have all had times in our time here where we feel like sleeping is a luxury and not a necessity. I think this table talk was good in that we all talked about some of our time management skills/experiences as well as our thoughts about sleep.

It almost seems like part of the college experience is to be a sleep-deprived student drinking 4 cups of coffee, struggling to stay awake in class. Despite all the research and studies showing the adverse effects of sleep deprivation, most people find it infeasible to get the recommended 9 hours of sleep daily. In fact, on the rare occasion I am able to get 9 hours of sleep, I honestly wake up feeling guilty for not using that time for extra studying. It has been ingrained into us that we should sacrifice sleep for academic or career achievement. When you consider that lack of sleep is correlated to increased risk for obesity, heart problems, stroke, and cancer, it is ridiculous that we neglect our health so easily.

After getting minimal sleep my first two years in college, I have now made a conscious effort to get at least 7 hours of sleep daily. Getting enough sleep feels like a privilege but it really should be a priority. As long as my assignments due for the next day are finished, I stop doing work at midnight. I then spend about an hour winding down by making plans for the next day, reading, and listening to music. Of course, this isn’t always possible but I do feel more energetic and productive during the day after a good night’s sleep.

I think I have been constantly complaining of how exhausted I am and how little sleep I get at Cornell regularly. I’ve had conversations with Liz about how hard it is to get relaxed enough to sleep at the end of the day and then having to wake up within a couple of short hours. I have tried chamomile tea, warm sleeping masks, sleepy time tea, and changing exercise routines to regulate my sleep cycle. I ended up using a sleep cycle app and the warm masks to help and, in the end, I got myself off of caffeine. It has been an interesting journey and this table talk showed me that, of the sample of maybe 10 students, none of us were well rested.

Interestingly, each of us had different strategies to deal with the lack of sleep and all of us expressed guilt because of sleeping. In the article that Liz made us read, this professor at Cornell at Doha proposed that college students should get about 9 hours and 15 minutes of sleep. Personally, between classes, schoolwork, work, research and just functioning as an adult, there’s no chance I can sleep for 9 hours without missing some type of work. It is just very difficult to be well rested and get work done. It’s not healthy but I think that’s how I’m functioning.

I was intrigued by the table talk today (focusing on sleep) because I often feel, and am, sleep-deprived during the week.  My parents usually remind me of how beneficial it is for me to get sleep, but somehow I always end up going to sleep late and waking up early.  While some of my friends here have a strict schedule that they follow in order to get a good amount of sleep, it seems like most of my friends are in the same situation as me (where they get little sleep because they are working or doing other things).  It was somewhat relieving to hear that the others at the table talk get less sleep than they should be getting as college students.

It was very interesting that everyone had various activities that they do before they go to sleep, such as listening to music, working out, checking social media, reading a book, etc.  Although these were means to unwind after a long day, they admitted that these activities were often part of the reason why they got little sleep.  This happens with me a lot, because I work most of the night and then listen to some music or watch Netflix before I go to sleep; however, I usually spend too much time on these activities and go to sleep much later than I could have.  Also, I was surprised to hear that most of us take naps during the day to catch up on sleep lost.

One of the questions that we addressed during our talk was how our sleep varies between high school and college.  I was expecting everyone to say that they get less sleep here, but there were several people who get more sleep (here) but still feel tired often.  This table talk made me want to make an effort to develop a better sleep schedule so I am well-rested during the week; it also made me realize that, like me, other college students lack adequate amounts of sleep and deal with the consequent sleep-deprivation in ways that work for them.

Tonight’s Table Talk about sleep was both a pleasant opportunity to commiserate and a startling reminder about the necessity of sleep in our lives. Sleep is one of the most common topics of conversation among college students and one of the most coveted resources in our frantic lives. Everyone at the talk agreed that sleep was something we did not get enough of, sometimes without even realizing it. We have become so accustomed to viewing 7 hours of sleep as the norm that some people were surprised to learn that college students and adolescents should be getting 9.25 hours of sleep a night. That is a stark contrast to many people I know, and even some people at the table talk, who only average around 4-6 hours a night. What shocked me most was one of the facts mentioned in one of the articles we had to read beforehand that claimed drunk driving and drowsy driving were equally dangerous.

It was also gratifying, if unfortunate, that other people shared the feeling that sleep is often a commodity that must be weighed against our other responsibilities. Many people at the talk echoed the idea that going to sleep to early induced guilt with the knowledge that they could be getting ahead with their work. Sometimes it seems as though, in order to sleep a healthy amount, some other facet of our lives must be sacrificed. However, we also shared strategies for sleeping earlier and more effectively, and we agreed that, with proper time management, it is still possible to get a sufficient amount of sleep.

Attending the Table Talk about sleep and exchanging stories about sleep habits, tricks on how to wind down before bed, experiences of the effects of sleep deprivation, and reactions to reports detailing how much sleep college students should be getting and what happens when they do not get it was a refreshing, informative experience to have as we are all entering into that part of the semester where things seem to get busy and then never slow down. Something that I found interesting was that while everyone had different sleep cycles and sleep habits, there was a general consensus among just about everyone in the group that the goal was to get at least 6 hours, though that goal is not always reached, and that realistically getting the recommended 9 hours and 15 minutes for college students—or even regularly getting 7 to 8 hours—seemed nearly impossible. This sort of general consensus among a group of students who have diverse habits and tactics for getting in those 6 hours really underscores how difficult it can be to balance self-care and the workload of a Cornell student. Also, a good number of students discussed how when workloads are so overwhelming and nearly impossible to physically accomplish, there is always the feeling that we could, and should, be doing something more; in this sense, there is the pressure to choose between getting enough sleep and fulfilling, or at least attempting to fulfill, academic duties. I know that hard work is undoubtedly a good thing, but discussions like this one really raise the larger question of whether the workload that many students are taking on crosses the line from helpful to harmful, especially considering the data from Dr. Maas’ studies about the hazards of not getting enough sleep.

What certainly did seem to lighten the burden of this workload, however, was hearing how other students experiences the same concerns that I do—worrying about sacrificing school work for sleep and feeling like I am never getting enough done. It is definitely encouraging to know that it is difficult for everyone to manage the workload because at times it can definitely seem like you are doing something that is making it so difficult to manage everything. Also, I will definitely be trying some of the tips that students shared for getting in the right mindset for sleep—like making a to do list for tomorrow to mentally signal to yourself that today’s work is done, and you have a plan in place to accomplish what you need tomorrow.