Sleep aids can compound insomnia-related problems

Tossing and turning with frustration and exhaustion every night, freshman Amy Tilles used to count the minutes until she could take another dose of sleeping pills.\nTilles experienced sleep deprivation, which is common among college students. She turned to over-the-counter sleeping pills to end her sleepless nights. \n“I took sleeping pills so that I could sleep regularly so I did not fail school,” Tilles said. “I wouldn’t be tired until 10 in the morning unless I took the pills.” \nStudents are experiencing more difficulties with sleeping disorders than in past years. \n“In national surveys in the 1970s, approximately 25 percent of college students indicated they have sleeping problems,” said Nancy Stockton, director of counseling and psychological services at the IU Health Center. “But in several surveys since 2000, almost 75 percent of students report sleeping difficulties.”\nShe said student sleep struggles can be attributed to things like heavy course loads, alcohol abuse, napping and eating or exercising too close to bedtime. \nThough some red-eyed students choose to take sleep aids of some kind, Brian Foresman, medical director at the IU Center for Sleep Disorders in Indianapolis, advises students to check with physicians before trying their luck with these remedies, which can actually prolong feelings of lethargy.\n“They can take you further into the edges of sleep deprivation,” he said. “They can subsequently disrupt additional sleep.”\nForesman also advised staying in bed while experiencing sleep complications. Getting out of bed to do other activities amplifies insomnia.\n“They get into bed and then get up to do lots of other things when they can’t sleep, and some of those things can reinforce the insomnia,” Foresman said.\nChronic insomnia, a more serious condition than sleep deprivation, affects between 10 and 20 percent of college students, Foresman said. Stress-related insomnia, however, hits almost all college students a couple of times a year, he said.\nSenior Jasmine Rogers tried using a generic over-the-counter sleep-aid with ingredients similar to those in Tylenol PM. She said that there is not enough time in her day to get everything done, so she sacrifices the time she would have spent sleeping. Getting to class is difficult for Rogers some mornings because she simply can’t get out of bed.\n“I’m an A student, but the one thing that lowers my grades is not going to class in the morning,” Rogers said.\nMany students resort to alcohol use to help them fall asleep, but Stockton said as alcohol leaves the blood stream people tend to wake up and have trouble falling back to sleep.\nStudents can improve sleep habits by setting a routine bedtime, getting adequate amounts of sleep each night, avoiding stress before bedtime, exercising regularly and avoiding naps after 3 p.m., Stockton said.