Rest assured: Sleep is vital to your health

Imagine a commercial promoting a new, magical health product. The announcer claims that this product can make you thinner, keep you looking younger, and even prevent cancer. Would you be interested in the product? We hear about the importance of sleep all the time, but in today's busy world, knowing about the real significance of it and actually finding the time to get an adequate amount of it are two completely different things.

"My sleep pattern is very inconsistent," said Eastern Illinois University student Ashley Hudson. "On nights that I have work and/or school, I sleep roughly four or five hours, sometimes even less," she said. Working most weeknights from 5 p.m. to 1 a.m., Hudson finds it hard to balance the activities she wants to do with those that she has to do and then sleep somewhere in between.

Young adults are feeling more pressure than ever to hold a part-time job, attend classes, and still manage to have some sort of a social life. With only 24 hours in a day, it's hard to find a healthy balance, but ignoring the recommended seven to eight hours of sleep a night can be detrimental to a person's health.

Bryan Vila, a professor of Criminal Justice at Washington State University, released a report in 2009 to the U.S. Department of Justice, which covered the dangers that can result from not getting enough sleep. "Researchers have shown that being awake for 19 hours produces impairments that are comparable to having a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .05 percent." The study is proof that sleep is not to be toyed with.

Sleep-loss-related fatigue is especially risky for college students who work all night and then make a commute to class three to five days week. While they may be aware of the physical dangers of not getting enough sleep, students may not realize how much harm they can be putting others into when they go for long periods without sleep and then get behind the wheel. However, if you are sleep-conscious and can make a habit of taking good care of yourself, you should be better off than many others.

In honor of National Sleep Awareness Week (March 7-13), try to invest in something more beneficial than what those late-night commercials try to sell: your health. Getting one or two extra hours of slumber a night - or a 20-minute nap each day - can lead to some amazing benefits.