Tenth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Poor sleep habits are often overlooked by undergraduate college students. Poor sleep habits are defined as periodically awakening throughout the night, insomnia, difficulty falling asleep, the use of medication to aid falling asleep, sleeping less than six hours as well as sleeping more than eleven hours. This systematic review assessed sleep habits and their association with mental, physical, and emotional health. Nine different academic databases were used in the process of selecting articles. The databases included: Academic Search Premier, Ageline, CINAHL, ERIC, Healthsource Nursing Academic Edition, MEDLINE, MEDLINE with full text, PsychInfo, and Sportdiscus with full text. Articles were included in the selection process if they met the following: (1) were published between the years of 2000 or 2019, (2) were peer-reviewed articles, and (3) included undergraduate students in a higher education institution. Out of the 11 articles that were selected, six articles addressed poor sleep habits and their impact on physical health, leading to obesity and cardiovascular problems. Secondly, five articles identified poor sleep habits and their consequences on mental health (i.e., depression and self-medication). Lastly, three articles discussed the correlation between poor sleep habits and emotional health, leading to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Despite the limited number of studies, common findings concluded that the lack of sleep could be correlated with negative consequences. Future researchers should further examine the correlation between sleep habits and mental, physical, and emotional health take into consideration the age of their participants, job status, marital status, and the number of their dependents.