If you're in college, then you'll for sure experience sleep deprivation. It's pretty common for college students to lose some hours of sleep for so many reasons, from studying to partying to hanging out to Leaguing (League of Legends, and there are a lot of people who do this, surprisingly enough). The problem with all this is that some people will get as little as fives hours of sleep to two hours of sleep or sometimes no sleep. This is EXTREMELY unhealthy. Sleep is very important.
1. Sleep helps you get through the next day. The average healthy amount of sleep for college age students is seven to nine hours of sleep. If you manage to sleep within this bracket, you will feel more rejuvenated and less sluggish the following morning. The purpose of sleep is to allow your mind and body to rest and recharge, like a battery.
2. Sleep helps you cut. If anyone out there is cutting or trying to lose weight, you need to be sleeping within the bracket. We burn calories when we sleep. If you sleep for more hours, you burn more calories. This sounds great but don't make the mistake that sleeping a lot more hours is better for you. No, sleeping too much is worse for you. Just like how your body needs to sleep and recharge, it also needs to move around and gets some stimulation. Think of your body as if it were a machine. It needs rest and to recharge, but if it doesn't run and just sits and collects dust, it'll deteriorate.
3. Sleep will help you study, take tests, and do homework better. Like I said before, your body requires recharge or else you start to feel the effects of sleep deprivation. If you sleep a healthy amount of hours you'll be able to focus on studying more, take tests with more attention, and do homework with more motivation. All three of these tasks need energy to perform, both mental and physical. If you're sleep deprived, your brain will be divert some of your focus to wanting to sleep and recharge rather than doing homework or taking your quiz. Therefore, you'll have a higher chance of falling asleep during these tasks. Even if you're pushing through off of caffeine, that will only go so far.
Sleep is very important for everyone, especially college students, yet so many students don't get the ideal number of sleep. The pros to getting enough sleep is greater than the cons, if there even is any. I guess opportunity cost plays a very big factor on the decision of how much to sleep, but when it comes down to it, the opportunity cost is mostly for your own health.
