Episode 1: Sleep, The West Point Way

The host discusses the importance of sleep and the negative effects of sleep deprivation, especially for cadets at West Point. He shares facts about sleep deprivation and the average amount of sleep college students and cadets receive. He emphasizes that the number of hours of sleep does not guarantee quality sleep and that 6 hours is not enough for a full workday. Sleep deprivation can lead to various health issues and negatively affect performance. The host interviews a cadet who also struggles with lack of sleep and discusses how it affects his physical, mental, and emotional health. They both acknowledge the difficulty of balancing sleep with academic and physical demands. The host concludes by urging listeners to reflect on their own sleep habits and make changes if necessary. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of After Taps. This is your host, Cadet Bradley Mackin. Today I'm going to talk to you about sleep deprivation. Sleep, as we know, is a very important part of our lives, especially as a cadet at West Point. With not much sleep, negative outcomes come out of that. This is a fun fact to start off. Going about 17 hours without sleep impairs you to the same level as a blood alcohol level of.05 percent, not far removed from the legal driving limit of.08. Now this is shocking for some of us especially, because a few of us have pulled all-nighters. I would not expect at all for just 17 hours to be approximate of someone being drunk. Now while researching this topic, I've learned that the average college student receives anywhere from 6 to 6.9 hours of sleep. Now I know here with our rigorous academic schedules and physical schedules, we probably get about less than that. And over a survey that I did for many cadets, especially cadets in this class, I found that the average amount of sleep is about 5 hours and 45 minutes. So I'd like to start off with amount of sleep. Although many believe that number of hours guarantees plenty of sleep, it scientifically does not. This is the issue that people have yet to acknowledge. That being said, when people believe that 6 or so hours is enough sleep to tide them over for an entire day's worth of work and learning, that's where the problem is introduced. Truthfully, 6 hours is absolutely nothing compared to what's actually necessary for one to have in a full workday, especially with the rigorous schedules that we go through. In terms of the number of hours sleep one must receive per night, the average cadet needs approximately 6 to 8 hours of sleep every night for proper performance and functioning throughout the 24-hour day. With this adequate amount of sleep, this allows time for one to fully re-energize and recharge overnight for the following day and perform. Personally, I continually find myself awake or staying up very night only to have to wake up quite early the next day to start my day. As a club hockey player, we have morning practices, and I usually find myself struggling to get out of bed. Usually we have about 4.45 wake up to get ready to leave for practice at 5.20, and that's when it gets really rough. I find myself on Tuesdays when we have these practices trying to drag myself through the day, and that's when I find myself not gnawing off, but just not mentally there when a teacher is giving a lecture. And once I get to the homework, I find myself trying to trace back and realize what was going on. So that's why I like to stress the importance of sleep. Some people are going to question the real importance of sleep and why this is such a crucial topic. Sleep deprivation is more serious and concerning than most people can understand. Not only does sleep affect how one functions on a day- to-day basis and how one interacts with their peers, but it also negatively affects one's health. Studies have proven that sleep deprivation may lead to a risk of the following heart attacks, heart diseases, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, and blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, or weight gain, strokes, mental illness, including anxiety and depression, which also leads to insanity and aging and skin, including wrinkles, dark circles, baggy eyes, and also even death. Sleep, it seems like, impacts us in all areas of our lives, and it's essential that we get enough. Receiving a healthy amount of sleep each night guarantees more energy, a positive attitude, a better focus, and attention, as well as improved performance. Another suggestion would be to simply decrease involvement and participation in the committed activities and responsibilities, but we know at West Point that's just not the case because we actually, absolutely, have our schedules packed full of activities, clubs, academics, you name it. I'm involved in countless activities, like many others here at West Point, that occupy me on a day-to-day basis. This includes my involvement in the club hockey team, as you know, working out on my own, keeping up with friends and family back home with the usual face time on a day-to-day basis. Jot on to this, prior to my acceptance in the West Point, I played junior hockey in a competitive hockey team in Boston, Massachusetts, for three years. I realized the importance of sleep and how it impacts my physical performance. When I first started playing hockey, I didn't really care too much about my sleep routines. I get maybe sometimes ten hours of sleep one night, maybe six hours of sleep on another night after a big road game. But then I started to realize what my roommate was doing. He was getting consistent eight hours of sleep a night. Yes, I know that might be a large task for a West Point cadet here, but back when I was playing hockey, it was easy to get into a routine. I started to take notice of my roommate's sleep routine, and I started to follow. In the first couple weeks of this routine, going to bed at a set time and waking up at a set time, I started to find that there was significant improvements in my mental, emotional, and physical well-being. By having a routine amount of sleep, greatly and significantly improves your overall well-being. From personal experience, I can now bring this to West Point. Although it pains me to say that I get about five to six hours of sleep a night, I strive to get into a routine. Whether that means six hours of night or seven hours a night, I strive to get an adequate amount of sleep. Many of us on the weekends find ourselves thinking that we can sleep a lot over the weekends to account for our lack of sleep during the weekdays, but that just isn't the case. Studies show that sleeping on an irregular basis is actually counterproductive. Those who sleep, let's say, 10 hours on the weekend and find themselves pulling all-nighters on the week or maybe five, four hours of sleep a night, are actually counterproductive and find themselves in more of a sleep deficit, lowering their immune system capabilities and also their performance in school, sports, and clubs, which is why the need for a constant amount of sleep is crucial. All right, so I have the pleasure of having a guest on the show today, Cadet Rick Marshall. He's been here for about a year and a half now. He's a YUC and he's got some experience in this area, obviously. He's on the club hockey team and a great player on and off the ice. Rick, happy to have you. Brad, thanks for having me on the show today. I'm honored to be your first guest and I'm excited to see what you have in store for me today. So obviously we're going to talk about sleep. I know sleep's a big part of our lives here at West Point. It's affected me, it's affected you, it's affected everyone. I'd like to start off, how many hours of sleep do you receive on average? Yeah, so sleep is a big thing here at West Point. You know, a lot of people are always complaining like, I don't have a lot of sleep, I need time to find, take a nap after class and stuff. And you know, for me, I'm in the same boat. So roughly on average per night, I probably sleep about five to six hours per night. You know, I go to bed roughly between 12 and 1 a.m. and I wake up between 6 and 6.30. You know, it's just pretty much the same schedule every single night, waking up at the same time. You're in a routine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I find myself kind of in that realm, five to six hours, usually mostly five hours. I think the average around here is about five hours, 45 minutes for a cadet here. But it's relatable. We have a lot of things on our plate. Not only do we have academics, but also physical, and also other things that were involved, clubs. So it's very understandable. I know we have, as we can relate, we have those early morning practices that we have. So it's definitely, definitely a challenge to get a good amount of sleep. And we try to strive for those eight hours, but yeah, it's definitely, definitely tough. I'd also like to ask, has the lack of sleep ever affected your physical, mental, and or emotional health in any way? Yeah, I would have to answer that with a yes. It's like you're trying to juggle everything that you do here all at the same time. So you got school, so you got the academic pillar, you got the workout, you got to be physically fit. And to do both of those, you got to have the right emotional state of mind. And if you're not sleeping, that's just not going to, they're not going to add up and you're just not going to be successful with your daily tasks. So for me, it's like you have this ebbs and flow of ups and downs, where you get a lot of good sleep and then you're performing really well. And then, you know, vice versa, you don't get a whole lot of sleep and you stop performing and you try to fix it by over sleeping or under sleeping. And you just kind of go through this cycle where you're kind of being down on yourself for not being successful and you're related to your sleep. So I'd say for me, yeah, I've been affected by the amount of sleep I get in all three of those pillars that you asked about. And how do I honor that? So I did a survey right before I made this podcast and did some research and I did a survey over my classmates and a hundred percent of them said that they found themselves falling asleep in class. And going off that, those statistics, you probably have found yourself, you know, trying to stay awake in class, which has affected your learning. Do you say you struggle with that frequently or have you kind of over your time here kind of adjusted to that? Yeah, I've found ways to figure out how to not nod off in class. You know, I've had a couple instances where I got to stand up and, you know, join the standing army, but it's not a very often thing for me anymore. And I got to say, I do drink a lot of caffeine in the morning. So that does contribute a little bit to it, right? There's that aspect of that extra boost of energy. But some of the classes I'm in here, you know, if they're very interactive, it keeps me from falling asleep. But then there's those those classes that you don't actually pay attention to and you're nodding off. And then, you know, it shows on the test when it comes to performing. You know, you're trying to think back to your memory about, hey, like what I learned this lesson and turns out you're battling the sleep demons. You know, it's like that's the hardest part right there is thinking about that lesson that you might not have learned anything because you're trying to stay awake. So, oh yeah, for sure. I've I find myself trying to juggle between should I get those extra hours in at night getting an assignment done or should I get sleep so I can be aware in class and know what's going on? You know, the teacher's giving a lecture, actually be knowing what's going on versus just having everything going one ear and out the other. So, yeah, totally. That makes sense. But Rick Marshall, thank you so much for your input. I really appreciate it. I know it's hard, you know, to get good, adequate sleep, but it's good to get another perspective, another cadet. And thank you so much for your time. Hey, thanks for having me, Brad. I appreciate it. Good luck with everything and I hope you find some time to get some sleep. Thank you. As we conclude this podcast, I want you to reflect on how much sleep you're getting at West Point and how much it's affecting your day to day. Maybe if you get more sleep, it might improve your performance and maybe it won't. But I want you to really think about that and see if you can make changes to your routine. Thank you so much for your time and I hope you took some lessons from this podcast.