It is part of our culture to stay up late and try to cut short on sleep to do more things. Greeley said an average adult needs seven to eight hours of sleep each night in order to function to their full capacity during the day. When a person is deprived of sleep, their performance level goes down. Kim Schanche, sophomore in FAA, stays up all night twice a week and said she gets more irritable during the day. Pamela Ryan, sleep lab supervisor at Carle Regional Sleep Disorders Center, said sleep-deprived people tend to be grouchy.
Mood tends to be the first thing to suffer.
In order to get the optimum amount of rest from sleep, Greeley suggests students be consistent with their sleep schedule. Greeley said everyone has an internal body clock that prepares the body to go to sleep at a specific time. If a person does not maintain a consistent sleep schedule, the internal body clock will not know when it should be awake or when it should go to sleep. Sleeplessness could also lead to more serious problems. Greeley said long-term sleep deprivation could discretely lead to chronic sleeping disorders.