Over the past few days, I’ve become the most unproductive, groggy, exhausted human being. This is no doubt a result of my erratic sleeping patterns. My sleep schedule has consisted of going to bed no earlier than 3 a.m., waking up no later than 2 p.m. and taking obscenely long naps throughout the day when the exhaustion becomes too much to handle.

This isn’t something we students are unfamiliar with — during the school year, it basically becomes the norm. Days chock-full of classes, meetings, job obligations and extracurriculars leave the wee hours of the night as the only time to do homework, party or continue procrastinating. Our to-do lists are so cluttered that sleep is typically the last item on the list. No one disputes the necessity of sleep, but many of us downplay its importance — some of us believe it’s something we can be successful without. Even if you run consistently on four to five hours of sleep and manage to get the grades and have a social life, you’re definitely not as healthy as you could be.

In an April 2013 National Institute of Health newsletter, sleep expert Michael Twery explains that sleep regulates the immune system, growth hormones, appetite, cardiovascular health and blood pressure. Lack of sleep has also been linked to higher risks of heart disease, obesity and depression, according to the newsletter.

The environment at UC Berkeley inevitably leads us to believe that sleep and academic success are mutually exclusive. While I’m clearly no paragon of sleeping — there have been countless occasions when I’ve gotten out of bed in the morning only looking forward to the nap I’d take a few long and miserable hours later — it’s important to re-evaluate the way we sleep in the context of our daily lives and commitments, regardless of how difficult change may be.

The first step to getting a good night’s rest — finding out how much sleep is actually necessary. That amount of sleep actually varies from person to person, and what makes some people feel rested and refreshed may be completely different for others. On average, according to UC Berkeley’s own Tang Center, adults should sleep seven to eight hours per night to feel alert and free of fatigue.

But this fact doesn’t help much — simply knowing how much sleep you need doesn’t mean you’ll get it. So how do you fix your sleep schedule? It means going to bed before 3 a.m. in order to get more hours in. It means establishing a schedule and sticking to it — yes, even on weekends — which is something just as important as the quantity of sleep. Waking up at 8 a.m. one day, snoozing until noon the next and sleeping in all day during the weekend disrupts the body’s natural rhythms and makes you feel awful. By getting quality sleep consistently, you can prevent stress and psychological strain, according to a Clayton Sleep Institute study.

This same sleep quantity and consistency should also be supplemented with regular exercise and maintenance of a well-rounded diet free of stimulants late in the day to maximize the quality of sleep each night.

What happens when we hit the mid-afternoon wall and just can’t function? Well, that’s when our buddy, the nap, comes into play. Napping shouldn’t replace a good night’s sleep, but if done right, it can seriously improve concentration and focus. The Harvard School of Public Health concluded that the likelihood of developing heart disease is 40 percent less in people who nap regularly. The benefits are so potent that UC Davis health professionals have begun to encourage their students to accompany a full night’s sleep with 20- to 30-minute naps to improve productivity and boost academic success. But the key here is to not overdo it — a nap longer than 30 minutes might backfire, making you feel more tired and sluggish than you originally were.

So if you’re sick of constantly feeling fatigued and lethargic, try this experiment: Go to sleep and wake up at the same time every day just for a week and notice how you feel. Our commitments and obligations are hopefully a little less intense now than they are during the school year, so use the next month to gear up for the school year by stocking up on sleep.

Our generation has done a great job of giving sleep less priority than everything else, but its importance is on par with developing healthy eating habits, exercising and maintaining proper hygiene and psychological health — all things we vehemently try to pursue. But without the energy and and restorative benefits of sleep, we’re mistaken in thinking that health and general wellness are attainable.

If we truly want to take control of our health, we have to start prioritizing sleep, even if that means getting a little less done. Our post-college lives aren’t going to get much easier. The next four years aren’t the peak of our responsibilities and commitments, but they may very well be the peak of our youth. We need to establish proper routines and sleep habits now, because our bodies won’t be able to withstand college-style sleep patterns forever. The earlier we start, the healthier we’ll be in the long run.

Shahin Firouzbakht writes a Thursday column on health issues affecting student life.
Contact Shahin Firouzbakht at sfirouzbakht@dailycal.org.

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Tona Melgarejo/Courtesy

The financial future of the largest captive group of hyenas in the world, which UC Berkeley researchers have studied for over two decades, looks uncertain as federal funding runs out.

The hyena colony faces an impending expiration of a grant from the National Science Foundation in 2013, and its grant funding from the National Institute of Health — which had been in place since 1985 — expired in 2006. This shortage has led to a split in opinion among the colony’s researchers over how to make up for the lost funds — one option involves selling hyenas to the Oakland Zoo, while another researcher has launched an Internet campaign to raise funds for the colony.

Tona Melgarejo, associate professor of human nutrition and immunology at Kansas State University and involved in the project, launched The Hyena Fund campaign to garner $150,000 in emergency funding by the end of this month to maintain the facility for one year until a permanent endowment can be established for the colony.

Stephen Glickman, a UC Berkeley psychology professor and principal investigator at the facility, suggested a different solution: giving some of the 15 African spotted hyenas to the Oakland Zoo to enable the colony to resolve its budgetary issues in the short run.

“I do not think that there is any disagreement between Tona and me,” he said in an email. “It is a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty choice of words. The hyenas are OK for now, but we do need to raise money.”

The National Science Foundation awarded $854,753 to the colony from 2009 to 2013 as a part of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act federal stimulus funds, according to the foundation’s award abstract for a colony research project on hyena female reproductive development. The funds will expire around June 30, 2013.

The National Institute of Health funded the project since its 1985 beginnings, but the grant was not renewed in 2006. Renate Myles, spokesperson for the institute, said the institute typically gives out grants in five-year periods, but did not specify why the latest grant was not renewed.

On the fund’s website, Melgarejo stresses the importance of hyena research including the study of their powerful immune system, which is resistant to anthrax. The study, “Patterns of Behavioral and Hormonal Development,” seeks to understand the development of male anatomy and poor impulse control among adolescent hyenas.

Melgarejo stresses on the website that this is “a unique ecosystem that cannot be reproduced in any other part of the world… once gone this extraordinary and vibrant center will be lost forever.”

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