A Comparative Analysis Of Anxiety And Depression Among College Students

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The average adult age 18 and older needs about 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep a night. Realistically, not many of us get that much sleep every night. Most people are lucky if they get that much sleep. Only eleven percent of college students in America get adequate sleep (Harvard Medical School, January 16, 2008). We’ve all had long days and even longer nights with early mornings. I am not sure about anyone else but not getting enough sleep greatly affects how I function throughout the day. With only five hours of sleep I tend to wake up and have a burst of energy. However, with all that energy I am also very irritated and cranky. After only a few hours I will start to get tired and around 3:00pm my body will start to get sluggish and by that time …show more content…
Sometimes the longer a person tries to complete a task or solve a problem the more frustration will build up. People who do not get enough sleep tend to have a lower threshold and get angered more easily than when they do get enough sleep. A study was done by Nyer et al. (2013) on college students to show that anxiety and depression are related to not getting enough sleep. Scientists observed a group of students who already had symptoms of depression. Students that were included in the study scored at least a 13 on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) before starting the study. To measure cognitive and physical function researchers used the Massachusetts General Hospital Cognitive and Physical Functioning Questionnaire (CPFQ). They defined sleep disturbance as under sleep and disturbed sleep (p. 874). Students who showed depressive symptoms and sleep disturbance had difficulty remembering information within the last month. Researchers found the students with sleep disturbance to have more anxiety and cognitive and physical impairment compared to the students without sleep disturbance (p. 875). They also found a connection between sleep disturbance and hyper arousal. Hyper arousal is defined as a state of increased psychological and physiological tension marked by reduced pain tolerance, anxiety, exaggeration of startle responses, insomnia, fatigue, and accentuation of personality traits. To analyze hyper arousal the researchers used Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire – intensity and frequency scale (ASQ). The BAI is a measuring scale to measure the severity of self reported anxiety. The ASQ is a questionnaire asking about frequency and intensity of anxiety. With sleep disturbance the brain is working harder to maintain focus and to finish tasks. The results of an overworking brain will not be beneficial especially in the long run

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