By: Ellie Hawkins

Everyone hears how important it is to get eight hours of sleep a day. For high school and college students this can be hard with classes, extracurricular activities and organizations, working, volunteering and staying social. I know it is hard because I try to stay involved on campus. The important thing is that one needs to learn how to manage his/her time.

When someone does not get more than six hours of sleep they can develop a sleep disorder. Harvard Women’s Health conducted a survey that found that more people are sleeping less than six hours a night, and sleep difficulties visit 75 percent of us at least a few nights per week. Harvard Women’s Health goes on to explain it is okay if there are a few rough nights that someone has trouble sleeping, but the more important concern is chronic sleep loss, which can cause health problems such as weight gain, high blood pressure and immune system issues.

So how does one make up for loss of sleep? The biggest thing is to take naps during the day. There are five stages in the sleep cycle; someone that is napping does not want to go into the third stage because you are starting to go into a deep sleep. When one is napping, one wants to stay in the first or second stage. The first stage is when one is just starting to drift off into sleep and the second stage is when ones brain activity starts to slow down (each stage lasts about ten minutes). I know from experience that when I took hour-long naps I felt worse than I did before I took a nap.

Do not nap more than 30 minutes, otherwise you will start to slip into that third cycle or even fall into a deep sleep. Usually the best time to nap is between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. This is because one’s energy levels start to dip during this time in the day.  Napping can be a wonderful way to catch up on sleep and increase productivity. Napping puts one’s body in a relaxed state, which counteracts the effects of daily stress and it can help decrease the risk of heart disease.

This is why so many preschools and kindergarten classes have children take naps in the middle of the day. With learning so many new concepts, it helps their brains absorb the information they have learned that day and prepare them for the new things they will learn after they wake.

When napping, it is important to set an alarm so one does not over-sleep past 30 minutes. Otherwise you will have a hard time getting started for the rest of the day. Secondly, make sure you are able to be in a quiet, dark, place and it is not too late in the day to nap. It is best to use a face mask if you are in a bright area. Do not nap within three hours of going to sleep because this can mess up your normal sleep pattern. Lastly, one of the best techniques people have learned is to take caffeine naps. A caffeine nap is when someone drinks a cup of coffee right before they nap because it takes at least 20 minutes for the caffeine to kick in. So someone will nap and be awakened in twenty minutes feeling refreshed from the nap with an extra kick of caffeine added.