Chapter 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter presents the review of literature and studies which are relevant to this

present study. Thus, this chapter provides background information which helps support

and gives bearing to this study. This presentation begins with the related literature about

the awareness on the effects of sleep deprivation among Grade 11 Senior High School

students of Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges.

From the definition of sleep deprivation it is a condition that occurs when an

individual does not get enough sleep each night (What are sleep deprivation, 2012).

There is an immense amount of research being conducted in order to determine how to

overcome sleep deprivation and its effect among all students, but in order to surpass any

issue it is important to know who is at risk of being afflicted by it.

It is important to understand that people of all ages, and ethnicities are at risk of

becoming sleep deprived. More specifically, individuals who have limited time for sleep,

such as students, people who work a lot of hours either one of more job. First respondents

and individuals who travel for work can also be at risk of suffering sleep deprivation. Also

individuals who suffer from various medical condition such as heart failure, heart disease,

obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, transit ischemic attack (mini stroke),

attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression can also suffer from sleep

deprivation as well (Who is at Risk, 2014)

So many people fail to maintain a proper sleeps schedule, but sleep is one of the

most important aspects of mankinds everyday life. There are several important aspects
to maintaining an adequate amount of sleep on a nightly basis. These would include:

committing new information to memory, maintaining normal body processes such as

proper carbohydrate storage and maintaining proper hormone levels, reduced tendency

for day time sleepiness, thereby reducing human errors such as medical mistakes,

reduction in irritability and patience, improves concentration and reduces moodiness and

laziness. Sleep disorders have been linked with hypertension, irregular heartbeat, and

increased cortisol levels, which an adequate amount of sleep assists in maintaining

proper immune system function (Benefits of sleep, 2015).

Overview of Research Question

It is the desire of a majority of research in the field of sleep deprivation to determine

what the optimum amount of sleep is for each person. This would be determined by the

efficiency of a persons memory, problem solving, and critical thinking skills after a night

of sleep. It is important to understand what might keep an individual awake at night in

order to be able to avoid this obstructions in the future. The subject is constantly explored

and the consensus is that seven to eight hours of sleep is the optimum amount, but it is

the desire of the researchers of this study to confirm this conclusions, while also aiming

to determine at reach point, if any, when sleep becomes redundant or a hindrance and

conversely negatively impacts every functions.

Causes of Sleep Deprivation

Just like other problems that humanity faces, there is not a single cause for sleep

deprivation. If a persons suffers from a sleep disorders, it is very likely that the individual

will become sleep deprived, the issue is determining which disorders the person suffers
from, so that health can be sought after to assist in receiving enough sleep. People have

been known to suffer from insomnia, sleep terror disorder, narcolepsy, sleep walking and

sleep apnea; this are just a few of the many disorders that individuals can suffer from,

which can prevent them from achieving an optimum sleep regimen each night as

witnessed by researchers Murphy and Delanty (Murphy, & Delanty, 2007).

A long with officially diagnosable sleep disorders, it has been observed through

empirical studies such as Hershner and Chervins Causes and Consequences of

Sleepiness among Senior High Students that schedules set by Colleges and Public

Schools are partially responsible for students being afflicted with sleep deprivation.

The third major factor that can lead to an insufficient amount of sleep is when an

individual makes personal and professional commitments beyond that of what is

reasonable accomplished. Different careers can lead individual to go extended periods of

time without adequate amounts of sleep each night, for example; medical professionals

and shift workers. When said individuals do finally have the opportunity to go home and

rest, they still have to deal with the demands of their socio-economic factors such as

rating a family and environmental noise pollution (Murphy, & Delanty, 2007).

By failing the obtain an efficient amount of sleep each night there is an increase

possibility of being one or more adverse effects on the individuals cognitive capability.

The actual ability to store information is not completely hindered when a person is

suffering from total sleep deprivation; however, when a person is suffering from a lack of

sleep, they may tend to lose the ability to filter information; therefore, storing more

irrelevant information into their working memory, living less room for that which is relevant,

making it appear that the memory itself is being hindered. This was clearly observe
through the empirical research study title: the effects of two types of sleep deprivation on

visual working memory capacity and filtering efficiency, which was conducted by

researchers Drummond, Anderson, Straus, Vogel, & Perez (Drummond, Anderson,

Straus, Vogel, & Perez, 2012).

Sleep loss has been shown to be inversely proportional to academic performance;

when one fails to receive an adequate amount of sleep on a nightly basis, the literature

states that an individuals skills in learning capacity, such as memory, attention and

problem solving skills are effected the most. Sleep deprivation can also lead to daytime

sleepiness. When this factors are all being faced, students are likely achieve lower test

scores and lower grade point averages; however, it has been shown that cognitive

function is not hindered as drastically when the individuals are working in groups as when

working alone (Chiang, Arendt, Zheng, & Hanisch, 2014)

There are multiple ways in which individual can work to overcome their sleep

deprivation and return to functioning at an appropriate efficiency. A full night of sleep is

not always an option with peoples nonstop lives, so the majority of people turn to different

stimulants in order to keep them going during the day. Studies have shown that when

20mg of d-amphetamines are ingested orally, the individual returns to cognitive state that

was present prior to being sleep deprived, allowing for an improvement in addition and

subtraction as well as logical reasoning task. Amphetamines also reduce a persons

response bias by increasing their confidents in their actions and decisions. It has long

been believed that nicotine has the ability to aid in the retention and enhancement of

cognitive functions, when the individual is sleep deprived, due to the fact that is stimulant,

but research has actually shown it has no positive effect on the brains cognitive
capabilities, due to its inability to improve sleep latency. L-deprenyl, like nicotine, fails to

improve sleep latency in sleep deprived individuals thereby negating any improvements

on cognitive performance during the sleep deprivation period. This findings were

discovered in the empirical research of Stimulant Drug Effects on Performance and

Behavior After Prolonged Sleep Deprivation (Newhouse, Penetar, Fertig, Thorne, Sing,

Thomas, & Belenky, 1992).

Sleep is a vital necessity for people to live a healthy lifestyle in which they can

function well and think properly. It helps with memory consolidation, learning, decision

making, and critical thinking (Gilbert & Weaver, 2010). Therefore, sleep deprivation is

necessary for keeping these cognitive functions at an optimal level for performance

wherever the person may be, whether it be at work, home or even school. Unfortunately,

not everyone receives adequate amount of sleep in order to function properly throughout

the day. These poor performances as a result of poor sleep quality and sleep deprivation

is especially evident among college students. Since college students have such busy

work, school, and social schedules to keep up with their sleep cycles become negatively

affected by it. They tend to have irregular sleep cycles depending on the day of the week

and report this satisfaction with sleep as a result of poor sleep quality (Gilbert & Weaver,

2010).

There are many causes as to why sleep deprivation occurs in college students. In

a study done by Ahrberg and his colleagues (2012), they found that different modes of

stress affect the circadian sleep rhythms of the students. Of these modes of stress, stress

from work and school are the most prevalent. A working students can feel stress from

going to school, then working too hard at their job, and then coming to come home to do
more school work until the early hours of the day. Students who do not have a job may

also feel the same stresses as working students if they spend too much time

procrastinating and have to spend time working on school work until the early morning as

well Ahrberg and his colleagues (2012) also state that as a result of sleeping this late,

sleep deprivation acts as another stressor on the student.

More causes of sleep deprivation as stated by Tsai and Li (2004), are gender and

grade differences. In Tsai and Li study, they found that female students tend to receive

lesser sleep with poorer sleep quality and more awakenings in the middle of the night

compared to male students. The male students would receive more sleep with better

quality. This is because women went to bed later but rose earlier. According to Tsai and

Li (2004), younger students such as college freshmen also tended to sleep less than

college seniors no matter what their gender. This maybe because of fewer workloads and

the more relaxed attitude of college seniors since they have their life more balanced out

as opposed to the incoming freshmen that are just trying to figure things out. The college

freshmen may feel more stress as they try to balance having a social life and keeping out

with their academics at the same time. As a result, sleep deprivation can be caused by

both gender differences and grade differences.

Many studies in the past have shown that sleep deprivation thus correlate with

poor academic performance because of lower abilities in cognition as a result of poor

sleep quality. In the study done by Gilbert & Weaver (2010), the two researchers found

that sleep loss interferes with a students academic, extracurricular and vocational

choices. They also found that the amount of hours students sleep in a 24 hours period

has greatly decreased over the years while sleep dissatisfaction has increased.
 Another study done by Medeiros and three other colleagues (2001), found a

correlation between poor academic performances and sleep deprivation but in this study,

they analyzed how irregular sleep cycles can be the result of different days of the week.

For example, their participants tended to have prolonged sleep during the weekends

because of their loss of sleep during the week days because of school (Medeiros et al.,

2001). Since humans have the tendency to continue sleeping late as the result of their

human circadian rhythm and make people moody and cause them to not be as alert as

they should be.

In a similar study done by Kelly, W. and two other colleagues (2001), they also

found that sleep deprivation greatly affects a students ability to perform in their classes.

This is evident through the students GPAs. Kelly and colleagues reported that people

who slept 9 hours or more in a 24 hour period had significantly higher GPAs than short

sleepers who sleep 6 hours or less in a 24 hour period. These short sleepers also tended

to show signs of anxiousness, were less creative, more neurotic, and more prone to

hallucinate as well (Kelly, Kelly, & Clanton, 2001).

The focus of this study is to inform students and possibly individuals in the work

force of the Awareness on the Effects of Sleep Deprivation among Grade 11 Senior High

School of Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges.