Perchance to Dream

Lounging around on sandy beaches in bikinis or clocking quality pajama time on their home turf, spring breakers unknowingly celebrated National Sleep Awareness Week from March 26 to April 4. Now that everyone has returned to the hectic bustle of Harvard life, it is time to embrace sleep and become one with nocturnal health. Harvard students are among the most notoriously careless when it comes to sleep habits, whether because of guzzling and passing out or late-night studying.

Young people screw with their minds with a variety of common bedtime behavior don ts. Cramming for work with too many all-nighters, catching z s at irregular hours or going to bed in noisy environments can induce a state of chronic insomnia, debilitating both physical performance and mental cognition. >=For people in good health, the occasional event is nothing to worry about. But if you create a bad habit, you re going to end up fatigued, your mood is going to change and your performance will be impaired,<= says Dr. Israel I. Lederhendler, sleep coordinator for the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. Sleep deprivation can torment the entire body because drowsy people gorge on carbs for an extra energy lift, but fatigued limbs refuse to exercise. So not hitting the sack guarantees that mac and cheese will beat the MAC.

According to Lederhendler, sleeping under alcohol-induced conditions is another integral piece of college students poor sleep hygiene habits. >=It knocks you out, but you wake up a few hours later. You re not going to sleep; you re losing consciousness. You don t sleep long enough,<= he cautions.

Prevent the weight gain and inevitable loopy section comments by getting the medically recommended seven to nine hours of slumber. Take the doctor s orders and extend the sleep awareness festivities.

Here s a big surprise: Passing out after a night of double fisting and then jolting out of bed chipper early the next morning doesn t count as a substitute for quality shut eye. Harvard students are among the most notoriously careless when it comes to sleep habits, whether because of guzzling or cramming.