College students at Iowa State and across the nation are losing sleep over school stress, financial pressures and relationships, causing numerous heath problems.

“We don’t really know why students don’t get enough sleep,” said Dr. Mark Blaedel, director of the Student Health Center.

According to Blaedel, the Student Health Center saw 292 cases of fatigue last year. This number understates the problem, because some students are coded as having “anemia” rather than “fatigue” after being treated by the Student Health Center, Blaedel said.

Anemia is a condition in which the blood is low in red cells or hemoglobin, resulting in paleness and weakness.

The notion that we all need eight hours of sleep a night, or any other fixed amount, is nonsense, according a wellness letter from the University of California at Berkeley written by Dr. Arthur Spielman.

“A good night’s sleep is whatever allows us to feel refreshed, alert and in a good mood the next day,” he said. “There are wide individual differences in how much sleep people need to achieve that. Some need nine or 10 hours, others only six.”

The average hours of sleep per night, according to a survey taken of college students, has fallen from 7.75 hours in 1978 to 6.75 hours in 1992 — a 15 percent drop, according to an article in Perceptual and Motor Skills.

The article also said the percentage of students who recognize they have sleep problems rose from 24 percent in 1978 to 54 percent in 1992.

Fatigue can be associated with medical problems. The Student Health Center looks for problems such as depression, anxiety, anemia, infectious mononucleosis and hypothyroidism, Blaedel said.

A person’s sleep alternates through two phases, which researchers call Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and non-REM.

An adult who sleeps 7.5 hours will spend 1.5 to 2 hours in REM sleep, according to the UC-Berkeley wellness letter.

“If we don’t get enough sleep, we come up short on the renewing or restoring part of our sleep — REM sleep,” Blaedel said.

Side effects of short-term sleep loss include fatigue, wandering attention and difficulty at simple tasks.

“If sleep deprivation is short-lived, say a single all-nighter, we still can do fairly well on complex tasks such as taking examinations, but not as well as if we had gotten good sleep,” Blaedel added.

Although caffeine pills quicken reaction time and prolong vigilance for some types of demanding tasks, there are no vitamins or pills available which can compensate for lack of sleep, he said.

“The only way to compensate for lack of sleep is to get sleep,” Blaedel said.

If students think they can’t get enough sleep, there are some things they can still do.

The Student Health Center recommends exercising late in the afternoon or early evening, stopping caffeine intake two to four hours before bedtime, avoiding cigarettes (because nicotine is a stimulant) and relaxing for about an hour before going to bed.

Napping for less than one hour in the middle of the day can help catch up on lost sleep, but it should never be a substitute for good sleep, Blaedel said.

Fifty-five percent of college students reported napping one or more times a week in a study done by David Dinges, according to the UC-Berkeley wellness letter.

Blaedel advised not to try to drink alcohol or use sleeping pills to force sleep, because both suppress REM sleep.

“Luckily, our bodies can recover from lack of sleep over a few days with a single good night of sleep.

“This is not as good, though, as regular good sleep,” Blaedel said.