One of the most important functions that people need is sleep on a daily basis which depending on how a person treats it, can have positive or negative effects.

Results varied when going around asking students at Fort Lewis College about the amount of sleep they get. 

John Whitt, a senior at FLC, said that he gets around seven to eight hours of sleep. 

Normally, he goes to bed at 9 to 10 P.M. and after waking up is either tired or rested depending on the day, said Whitt. 

Hanna Gallegos, a junior at FLC, said that she gets nine hours of sleep and is normally going to sleep at around 10:45 P.M. 

She is in bed by 10:15 P.M. and does not look at screens before going to sleep, she said. 

Normally she feels rested and not tired after waking up, she said.  

Another junior, Boe Hawkins, said that he gets six hours of sleep and goes to bed at 10:30 or 11:00 P.M. 

His routine before going to bed usually includes putting his dog out, putting his kids to bed and reading, he said. 

He is used to his sleeping schedule and normally wakes up rested, he said.

From these different students, a range of different hours of sleep and times that people sleep can be seen. 

The amount of sleep that a person needs changes as they age, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports in an article. 

Sleep and getting rest on a daily basis are something that is important for a person’s health and emotional well-being, said Autumn Leigh, a visiting biology professor here at Fort Lewis College. 

The significance of sleep in a person’s health is that sleep puts us into a state of being that is known as the parasympathetic state, she said.

This is a state that allows the body to rejuvenate, repair itself and digest our food, she said. 

This includes repairing any kind of damage that the body has gone through and in the replacement of new cells appearing to replace cells that die or change, she said. 

But when a person does not get enough sleep it causes immunosuppression in the person which causes the immune system to become suppressed and weakens its ability to defend the body against any type of invading pathogen like a virus or bacteria, she said. 

A person should avoid certain substances like caffeine, nicotine and alcohol before going to sleep because it can affect the quality of sleep that they achieve, she said. 

A substance like alcohol is a depressant and it will not help to achieve a deep enough state for recovery even if it causes them to fall asleep or sleep for the recommended amount, Leigh said. 

The reason it is important to achieve a deep state of sleep is because it allows a person to go through different cycles that our brain goes through and to allow our brain to rest and process things that happened throughout the day, she said.

And in the ways that it affects the body, there is an impact on a person’s mental well being, said Amoneeta Beckstein, an assistant professor of psychology who teaches a class dealing in the psychology of sleep.

A lack of sleep can mimic conditions that mimic mental health disorders such as mood disorders, Beckstein said.

Lack of sleep and inconsistent schedules can lead to the development of a sleep debt, he said.

Sleep debt is the accumulation of requiring more sleep on following nights after not meeting the required sleep a person needs, he said.

Once hitting a large accumulation it begins to have negative effects on the brain like affecting a person’s decision making, moods and response time, he said.

Lack of sleep can also be dangerous such as when a person has to drive and they are tired from poor sleep, he said.

On the other hand, good sleep can affect somebody’s mood stability and they are more likely to have a stable mood if they are consistently sleeping over time, Beckstein said.

Ways to achieve this is by incorporating a sleep schedule as well as practicing good sleep hygiene, said Beckstein.

Practicing good sleep hygiene includes not being exposed to bright lights 30-60 minutes before bed as well as not being on electronics, he said.

A research study looked at when people who were on their phone before sleeping have a worse quality of sleep than those that read a book even if going to sleep around the same time, he said.

Alerts or notifications that come on their phone can result in dopamine that alerts a person and wakes them up which makes it more difficult to sleep, Beckstein said.

Even having an alarm can be harmful to a person’s quality of sleep since it can disrupt the sleep cycle that a person has to go through, he said.

If a person needs to wake up early for something then they should be going to sleep earlier, he said.

The piece of advice that he would like to leave students is to be mindful, pay more attention to how they are sleeping, what their habits are and how they are feeling throughout the day, he said. 

He hopes that there is more awareness about the lack of sleep that people experience and how to address this situation, said Beckstein