After experimenting with natural sleeping pills, ‘Nighty Night’ tea from the health food store and a one-day stint with Ambien, it was clear that I needed to visit a doctor.

Sleep was not coming easy for me, but I needed to find a way to get a good night’s sleep. If tossing and turning were an NCAA sport, I would have been captain of the Syracuse University team, and I’m sure many people would make the lineup. It was more than embarrassing when my SPA 101 professor had to tap on my shoulder and wake me up when I was snoring at my desk last fall.

For college students, getting a full night’s sleep and a 4.0 GPA are both equally difficult feats. Many college students have a difficult time falling or staying asleep, or often times, students like me find themselves fighting to do both.

Some types of sleep disorders are sleep apnea, insomnia and narcolepsy.

Sleep apnea is a problem associated with breathing during the night. People who have this may have a delay in signals from their brain to breathing or have an obstruction in their throat while sleeping. Very often sleep apnea is associated with snoring, and more men than women have this disorder.

Narcolepsy is a feeling of tiredness even after a full night’s sleep. No matter how much a person with narcolepsy sleeps, they will still want to and unwillingly fall asleep. Someone with narcolepsy may fall asleep behind the wheel, at work or anywhere unintentionally.

According to sleepnet.com, about .03 percent of the general population could be diagnosed with narcolepsy, and it has been found to be hereditary. According to sleep-deprivation.com, 20 percent of college students suffer from sleeping disorders, including insomnia. Stress also causes many people to lose sleep. Your sleep schedule needs to stay consistent for optimal sleeping success, but with a college timetable it’s hard to go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day.

Though it’s difficult to regulate your sleeping schedule, there are things that you can do to prevent difficulty falling asleep at night. Consuming high dosages of caffeine will result in an inability to fall asleep and increased energy that may not be wanted late at night.

Although going to the gym and showering early in the day is often helpful when it comes to feeling tired at night, doing so later in the day may be keeping you up when it’s time to catch some zzz’s.

To me, the idea of a daytime nap sounds ideal, but the truth is it will just ruin your night’s sleeping time and lessen the chance of you falling asleep earlier. If you are getting tired during the day, stretching can revive you and make the craving to fall into bed less desirable.

If you think you may have a sleeping disorder, it’s a good idea to go to a sleep clinic or your doctor. You’ll be better off sleeping than counting sheep.

Rebecca Toback is a sophomore magazine journalism major, her columns appear every Thursday and she can be reached at rltoback@syr.edu

Published on September 9, 2009 at 12:00 pm