Recent rise in sleep addictions
February 7th, 2008
It’s four in the morning and junior Katie Bustler knows she should open her textbook, but instead, she reaches for her pillow. Soon, her heart rate slows, her body temperature drops and for the next three to four hours she lies unconscious, peacefully hallucinating.
Sleep addiction is the latest growing trend among college students. A recent study in 2007 by the National Institution of Statistics showed that 50 percent of college students are sleeping at least one hour a night while nearly 100 percent have experimented with sleep during their college career.
Ithaca College is no exception. Bustler admitted that she was seduced by the world of sleeping very early on:
“Back in high school, one of my friends had an older brother who went to college,” she said. “During summer vacation, he told us all about it.”
So she tried it once or twice. But the problem didn’t end there.
“I was still doing it when I got to college,” she said. “I thought I could just sleep once in a while on weekends, you know? But before I knew it I was sleeping almost every day.”
Most sleep addicts think that they can lie down for just 20 minutes or so, but this is rarely the case. Once asleep, it is possible to stay that way for hours on end. It is impossible to be productive during one of these sleeping sessions, sometimes referred to as “naps” by addicts, and over time it is a habit that can affect other aspects of life.
“After going to class for five hours, working at the dining hall and meeting with my project groups, it’s just so tempting to curl up between the sheets and let the sleep take me away to another place,” Bustler said. “A better place.”
She said it’s damaged her social life.
“While all my friends are out spending time together, I’m in bed drooling on the pillow,” Bustler said. “It’s so embarrassing.”
The good news is that it is possible for addicts to regain control of their lives. Bustler has a few strategies to take her mind off of sleep.
“Some things that help me are checking Facebook, watching videos on YouTube, keeping up on Britney’s custody battle and checking Facebook,” Bustler said. And her efforts seem to be working.
“For a while, I was sleeping eight to 10 hours a night, but I’ve limited myself to just two or three — maybe four on the weekends,” she said. “It has to be a gradual process because it’s not healthy to go cold turkey.”
Bustler even believes that she might see a day when she leaves her dangerous addiction behind:
“Next semester, I’m going to take 21 credits,” she said. “It’s the only way I can be sure I’ll never sleep again.”
from http://theithacan.org/am/publish/opinioncolumn/200802_Recent_rise_in_sleep_addictions.shtml