 "Photo: Dane Koch")
Running in place and pumping iron aren't only ways to lose weight and get healthy. They're also ways to help students catch some Z's after stressful lectures and tests, which are soon to come.
Sleep deprivation and insomnia, which can lead to depression, are the most common complaints the Student Health Center handles, said Jeff Thomas, chief of clinical medicine. However, it is possible to achieve the desirable seven-to-nine hours of sleep without prescribed medicine.
"We very much emphasize the benefit of exercise in terms of helping with sleep," Thomas said. "But we do advise that you do not exercise late into the evening. After exercising, your metabolism is accelerated, as is your level of alertness."
Thirty to 60 minutes of vigorous exercise works as a physical outlet for the stresses students may have from school or other things, he said. Along with exercising the body, students need to exercise consistency in their sleep patterns.
"If you have someone going to bed one night at 9 p.m., then the next night 3 a.m., then the next night midnight, that sort of variability in your sleep cycle tends to make it difficult to sleep and can eventually lead to insomnia," Thomas said.
Senior Tyler Kelly, president of the Exercise Movement Club, understands how beneficial exercise is for sleep.
Kelly lifts weights at least four times a week and runs twice a week, he said. It helps him relieve some of the stress that comes with studying, and he learned as a freshman that sleep is always a better alternative than pulling an all-nighter and cramming.
"The one thing that struck me is my psychology professor said that every study ever done on taking a test, whether (students) stay up all night studying or sleeping, sleeping is always better," Kelly said. "And I thought, 'OK. I'm going to take that to the heart.'"
Kelly continues to get seven to eight hours of sleep with the help of pumping iron and taking a run out on the town, he said. But he never saw a difference when it came to running in the morning or at night.
"I've worked out at night while I was running track because I had a time conflict with fall scheduling," Kelly said. "It didn't seem to affect me that much."
Breaking a sweat is one of the easiest ways to help senior Katie Collins drift off to sleep when she has early classes, she said. But unlike Kelly, she doesn't do it consistently.
"I'll do anything that'll just tire me out," Collins said. "I do [exercise] when I feel stressed, which is when school starts. And I do it whenever I find the time."
She exercises whenever the feeling of restlessness settles in, but no matter how much she works out she can never fall asleep before midnight, she said.
"I just don't fall asleep that early," Collins said.
Whether students are going to sleep at midnight or later, as long as they're being consistent and getting seven-to-nine hours, they will function and focus properly, Thomas said. Without sleep, the body can weaken and the ability to calculate memory can be just as difficult as taking a test with no knowledge of the material.
"Sleep is a normal physiological process that restores us physically, emotionally and intellectually," he said. "People who aren't getting an adequate amount of sleep are less able to handle stress emotionally and physically."
Raelene Willis can be reached at rwillis@theorion.com
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