College Habits Essay

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College of Bad Habits The essay “The Perils of Higher Education” written by Steven Kotler, talks about the habits that students follow in college that may end up hurting them in the process. The article states the issues students have from lack of sleep from studying, partying, not eating right, consuming alcoholic beverages, and smoking. Their memory lacks from not sleeping at least 8 hours. They stay up late partying. They don’t eat right which may lead to Alzheimer’s down the road. They may drink heavily which doesn’t help brain cells. Kotler says smoking may help them stay focused. “The Perils of Higher Education” article states that college students choose poor habits which may cause difficulty to retain information by the habits students chose. One survey done on undergraduates and medical students at Stanford University finds that 80 percent of qualified students were sleep deprived. Another study from the National Sleep Foundation found that young adults get about 6.8 hours a night of sleep. Sleep is needed for memory and having a good night’s sleep would help. Harvard Medical School psychologist, Matt Walker, states two types of memory exist: procedural and declarative. Procedural memory-the deep slow-wave stages happens in the last two hours of sleep, declarative-the same as procedural, but falls during the first two hours of sleep. He states that when we learn new skills after 24 hours of not sleeping, in a week the information will diminish. Kotler blames educators in encouraging the sleeplessness. The article also looks at the eating habits of the college students. A survey at Tufts University finds found that 50 percent of students are lots of fat and over 7o percent ate a significant amount of saturated fats. Researchers found back in the 80’s that eating poorly links with Alzheimer’s. A study by Ann-Charlotte Granholm, a director of the Center

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