Subtracting Sheep

It's 1 a.m. and after hours of procrastination, sophomore Lorenza Jara prepares to write a six-page paper that's due the next morning. With a Coke in one hand and a coffee in the other, she slips into the adrenaline-pumping mode that helps her get all her projects done on time. \nBalancing her position as Teter Quad president, a boyfriend, friends and work, Jara said time is a luxury she can't spare, at least not for homework. Like many IU students, she would rather sacrifice sleep more than anything else.\nWith final exams in sight, more students will experience similar sleepless nights. According to the Journal of American College Health, 15 percent of college students consistently report not getting enough sleep. Anne Reese, director of Health and Wellness Education at the IU Health Center, estimated a fifth of IU students are regularly sleep deprived. \nReese said several factors contribute to the sleepless phenomenon. Sleep experts preach every person should go to bed and rise at the same times every day. But most college students can't regulate their schedules like a high school student or career person can, she said. College students are also notorious for not adequately juggling school, work and recreation.\n"Too much fun, too much social, too much pressure to make good grades, too much this or that, and what you start doing becomes habitual for the semester," Reese said.\nA person can be groggy, irritable and have no attention span after pulling an all-nighter, but he or she can make up one or two nights of lost rest. According to the Mayo Clinic Health Letter, a good night of sleep can rejuvenate a person's body after nights of cramming. \n"A person never dies from just sleep deprivation," Reese said. "Eventually your body will sleep if it needs it."\nWhile the body will take charge if a student doesn't, certain long-term effects can strike a person who doesn't sleep regularly. Lack of sleep weakens the immune system, making a person more susceptible to colds, mononucleosis and other illnesses, Reese said. People are also five times more prone to depression when denied sleep, according to the Mayo Clinic. Nutrition Action Healthletter noted healthy people were more resistant to insulin the day after losing sleep, making them more vulnerable to diabetes and heart disease.\nIU insomniacs' problems aren't limited to potential illnesses. While many students drink coffee or soda to stay awake, others resort to more dangerous methods. Reese said she hears about students using caffeine pills, herbal supplements and Ritalin to stay awake. Others have discovered alternative drugs.\n"Caffeine pills keep you awake," freshman Doug Kruse said, "but Adderall makes you want to study."\nAdderall is a stimulant used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder, which allows the body to concentrate on the task at hand. Kruse said the drug helps a person focus, for example, on weeks of work that need to be finished in one night. The business major admitted he has used Adderall a few times. \nRitalin and other prescription drugs are used to treat medical problems and can cause serious side effects, Reese said. Sleeping helps students study more than any stimulant, she said. \nSenior business major Jill Mertens said she also knows about the pressure of staying awake to get schoolwork finished. She said she wished she had Ritalin the other night when she needed to conduct research because the stimulant helped her study once before.\nMertens said she regularly goes to bed around 4 or 5 a.m. and has pulled at least three or four all-nighters this semester. She said that's a vast improvement from last year, when she stayed up all night to do work two or three days of the week. Thinking back, she said her occasional colds are a result of her lack of sleep.\nOther students have figured out how to fit sleep into their hectic schedules. Freshman pre-nursing major Lindsey Weber said she gets plenty of sleep. She tries to manage her schedule so her work is done by bedtime at 1 a.m.\nWeber might have hit on a concept many students should grasp. Reese said the key to ending sleep deprivation is a change in lifestyle. Sleep replenishes the body and therefore must be managed into a schedule. The sleep-deprived should start studying before 9 or 10 p.m. and refrain from long afternoon naps that can extend an insomniac's day. \n"A famous sleep researcher said, 'Sleep deprivation makes you stupid,'" Reese said.