How To Maximize College Drinking

I just had to make note of the following: New study shows cramming college students pay price

College freshman Edie Weiner arrived home for winter break on a Saturday night, fell into her childhood bed and didn't get up for 20 hours.

By the time the 18-year-old stumbled out from hibernation at 5 p.m. the next day, her parents were growing a bit anxious.

Weiner, like many of her classmates, was recovering from a sleepless, caffeine-fueled week of cramming for finals — a sort of celebrated ritual that has long played out on college campuses.

But while some parents may be annoyed about their children's unusual sleep patterns when they return home for break — the word "lazy" might even be muttered on occasion — medical experts describe the students as sleep-deprived and say new research provides cause for concern.

A study published in the Dec. 18 issue of the Nature Neuroscience journal examined how memories are processed in the brain during sleep. During the nondreaming portion of sleep, the brain replays the day's events, helping people reflect on recent happenings and learn from them, said Matthew Wilson, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory.

...

Since emerging from her sleepathon, Weiner often awakens at 9 a.m. for breakfast, then naps from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. before heading out the door to hang with friends until 2 a.m. or so.

My parents "don't think it's typical, but I do," said Weiner, a freshman at Southern Illinois University.

Weiner concedes she spent too much time socializing at school and found herself sleeping through some of her classes. She isn't sure she will resume her equine studies classes next semester.

Researchers are still studying the long-term ramifications of sleep deprivation, but this much they know: It can lead to chronic fatigue, depressed moods, irritability, headaches and weight gain.

Aside from making me long to re-live my college days, it reminds me that there is one lesson students have a hard time ever learning. Namely, if you go to all the lectures (3 hours a week), spend three hours a week doing the reading, take notes while in the class, AND average eight hours of sleep a night, this will leave you around 82 hours a week of doing nothing but goofing off. An additional benefit is you would be pretty much be guaranteed a B average as well.

So any aspiring college students out there, learn the lesson well.