Summary of Circadian preference and college student beliefs about how to cope with sleepiness

The article

The article describes a study that examined the relation between circadian preferences and the beliefs about ten effective ways to relieve sleepiness. The article starts with an introduction then the used methods are shown followed by the results and ending with a Discussion.

Introduction

A lot of studies examined the sleepiness of students and even the use of some main methods to cope with the sleepiness but this is the only study that examined students coping methods comprehensively to find out how students rate the relative effectiveness of different ways to cope with sleepiness. This study is important because a better understanding of how students cope with sleepiness and how different methods work according to the students can improve the night-time sleep. The study also examined the relation of circadian preferences (morning types, evening types and intermediate types) and the believes of the students about the coping methods with sleepiness. Evening types are coming during adolescence and the number of evening types decrease during adulthood.

Method

The participants of this study were 298 introductory psychology students (79 males and 219 females) at a Canadian college. The average male and female age was both 20.69. The study was approved by the Institutional Research Ethics Review Board at Grant MacEwan College in Canada. The measures were Morningness/Eveningness Questionnaire and ten fixed methods to Cope with Sleepiness with one open method.

Results

According to the Questionnaire 190 students were neither morning nor evening types, 108 students were evening types and 18 were morning types. The most effective methods according to evening types were: naps, coffee, exercise, spending time outdoors, energy drinks and caffeine pills while the most effective methods according to intermediate types were: Exercise, spending time outdoors, naps, coffee, energy drinks and cooling the body temperature. Surprising to notice is that caffeine pills listed in effective at the evening types was listed at ineffective at the intermediate types. In the open method most students filled in keeping busy or listening to music.

Discussion

The results of the study show that college students with different circadian preferences have different believes about the methods of coping with sleepiness. This is causing different behavior of different circadian preferences between students. Further research is needed to explore the relationship between student believes about effective ways to cope with sleepiness and what they actually do when they are sleepy.

Personal value

I am an evening type and this study may help me with finding the right methods to cope with my sleepiness. This study is focused on students and because I am a student this study is related to me too. This methods can help me feel better after a short night and that is very valuable for me.

Connection with Smart Life Rhythms

This article relates with Smart life Rhythms in the sense of sleeping rhythms of the students. This article shows very good how to research this sleeping rhythm and can help students of Smart Life Rhythms to find the right way to do a similar research. In this article they explain very good how to start with a group participants and what methods are possible to use.