Ladies, be sure to leave Bostock Library at a reasonable hour tonight--a late bedtime could be more detrimental to your health than you think.
A study completed recently at Duke University Medical Center found that women who reported poor sleep quality were more likely to develop mental and physical health problems later in life than their male counterparts.
Women who slept badly were found to be at greater risk for depression, stress and emotional anxiety, said Dr. Edward Suarez, associate research professor of medical psychiatry and the lead author of the study. The women were also more prone to experience high blood pressure, heart disease and type 2 diabetes with age.
Suarez said the study, which appeared in the March issue of Brain, Behavior and Immunity, was the first of its kind to examine how sleep directly affects mental and physical disease in men versus women.
He added that the higher level of testosterone in men may better protect them against the negative physical effects of sleep deprivation.
"This study gives college women and Duke women more information about how important sleep is to our mental and physical health," Suarez said. "There is no substitute for sleep."
Although more common among females, heightened emotional distress because of sleep deprivation is a problem for both men and women on campus, said Dr. Jeff Kulley, coordinator of clinical services at Counseling and Psychological Services.
The more sleep an individual gets, the more easily he or she can respond when faced with stressful situations, he said.
On a campus where students spend hours on schoolwork, extracurricular commitments and leisure activities, quality of sleep becomes a major issue, Kulley noted.
Senior Christine Kim said Duke's culture pressures students to get their work done, even if it is at the expense of a good night's sleep.
"If I don't get a lot of sleep, then I'm tired, but I feel like I just have to plug through [my work]," she said.
Although Kim said her emotional state is rarely affected by little sleep, Kulley said many students' emotional anxiety is rooted in poor sleep habits.
"Often, a vicious cycle can develop, with sleep problems exacerbating emotional distress and vice versa," he said.
But Kulley said the higher rate of distress among women compared to men may be a greater consequence of the Duke environment than of females not getting enough sleep.
Women should consider the long-term effects of poor sleep as equally important to the short-term effects, Suarez said.
"I think students need to realize that sleep is a critical part of their lives, that it has very important impacts on their mental well-being and their physical health," he added.
As a college student, however, Kim said the potential physical effects 10 years from now seem too distant for her to drastically change her sleep habits.
Suarez plans to conduct future studies that will test for differences in brain activity between men and women during sleep and will survey how disturbed sleep affects health in the short term.
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