Sleeping Pattern Among South Indian Population

Sleep affects physical growth, mental growth, behaviour and emotional development besides determining cognitive functioning, learning and attention. Apart from physiological, psychological and environmental factors, sociocultural factors also play a major role in determining sleep pattern of a person.

Nowadays sleeping pattern is changing for every individual due to their working and personal schedule. The first state in a sleep cycle is light sleep, followed by deep sleep and a dream state referred to as REM-sleep. A full sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes and is normally repeated several times for every night.

The college experience is of great value in providing emerging adults with a structured environment in which they could gain the knowledge, skills, and independence to chart their own path, become successfully employed, good citizen and contribute to society. A potential obstacle to maximizing success in college is the high prevalence of daytime sleepiness, sleep deprivation, and irregular sleep schedules, lack of sleep in night among college students.

Daytime sleepiness is a major problem, exhibited by 60% of college students compared to 34% of adolescents and adults. At least 4 days a week, 50% of students report that they are drowsy, tired, or sleepy. Sleeping is defined as the inability or difficulty in maintaining alertness during the major wake period of the day, resulting in unintended lapses into drowsiness or sleep. It is important to note that sleepiness is often circumstance-dependent, with many aspects of the students’ learning environment exacerbating sleepiness. For example, a lecture that does not require active participation and may be in a dark, warm lecture hall can unmask underly sleepiness.

Sleepiness and irregular sleep schedules have many unintended consequences, which are negatively impact such as learning, memory, and performance. The precise details of the relationship between sleep and memory formation are not completely understood. The dual process theory maintains that certain types of memory are dependent on specific sleep states, such that procedural memory (knowing how) might be dependent on REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and declarative memory (knowing what) on NREM sleep. The sequential processing theory suggests that memory requires an orderly succession of sleep stage, ie memory formation may be prompted by slow-wave sleep and consolidated by REM sleep.

Sleep deprivation is defined as obtaining inadequate sleep to support an adequate daytime alertness. How much sleep a young adult needs is not clearly known, but is thought to be 8 hours. Sleep deprivation and sleepiness are caused by a host of many reasons and have numerous negative consequences. To understand the consequences of sleepiness and sleeping pattern, knowledge of normal sleep and its impact on learning, memory, and performance are necessary. Many college students are sleep deprived because they go to sleep late and wake up for classes before adequate sleep is obtained. This will occurs for multiple reasons; some are physiologic and others behavioral.

Little doubt exists among health professionals about the fundamental importance of sufficient, restorative sleep is maintaining one’s physical and mental health. Troubled sleep is considered both a predictive sign and symptom of many illnesses, and is associated with large amount of problems in the quality of life. Briefly, chronic sleep disturbances are associated with an increased risk of work absenteeism and accidents, as well as significant decrements in social functioning, physical and mental health, and general quality of life.

Sleep in younger adolescents (ages 13–17) has been extensively documented. Because of a multitude of intrinsic and environmental factors, younger adolescents are particularly vulnerable to disturbed sleep, and are one of the most sleep deprived age groups in our country.

Hence the aim of this study is to compare the sleeping pattern between the day scholars and hostlers among South Indian population.