Do Hours Worked Affect Your Sleep?

Group C3 - Alicia Knight, Madison Burke and Lisa Nguyen

EDT 180 Section C
Professor Gary Lewallen
November 29, 2016

SECTION C3, DO HOURS WORKED AFFECT YOUR SLEEP?

As a group, we decided to conduct a research question that correlates how the amount of
hours a student works affects the average amount of sleep they receive as an individual. After
conducting our research questions, we got responses from 93 students and results have shown
that when an individual works more hours per week, he or she will have less total hours of sleep
in the week. Students were asked for the total amount of work hours and the total amount of
sleep hours per week that they attain. In addition, we added questions regarding the effects that
can raise stress levels, which could potentially affect the total hours of sleep. Students in certain
majors and/or grade level can also greatly affect the results. We used our survey data to compare
people who get specific amount of hours of sleep per night to the amount of work hours per
week.

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute recommends that an average amount of
sleep per night for a healthy adult is seven to nine hours of sleep. That amount of hours is the

SECTION C3, DO HOURS WORKED AFFECT YOUR SLEEP?

minimum amount needed to reach a full sleep cycle. Elderly people and children require more
hours of sleep for healthy brain function because of their physical expendings. Many factors in
an individuals day play a role in affecting his or her amount of hours of sleep. Work is the
number one reason why people are losing sleep as it may require late hours or over time and at
home projects. Work obviously takes up time in a persons day and an individual would have to
reduce the amount of hours of worked in a day to relieve the stress that comes with a job. Work
is not only a factor which affects sleep though, school also occupy lots of hours and stress for
people.
Among all of those who participated in our research, all are currently students. As
students, the number of hours of studying and schooling are considered. Students that work 20
hours or more in the week make up about half of the participants in the research. Evidently, the
same amounts of participants are not getting the required amount of sleep per night. The data
shows that 39 out of 93 students get six or less hours of sleep per night.

SECTION C3, DO HOURS WORKED AFFECT YOUR SLEEP?

Since work is the major cause of a lack in the total amount of sleep hours due to stress
and time, we collected data to analyze how many students work more than 20 hours each week.
Thirty percent of our participants are not working which leaves seventy percent of students
working anywhere between 10-40+ hours a week. Out of the 93 participates, 44 students work 20
hours or more per week.

SECTION C3, DO HOURS WORKED AFFECT YOUR SLEEP?

We then compared work hours to grade level. We assumed that students starting college
are most likely not working. The chart below shows that more than half of the freshman
population is not working. We believe that after freshman year, students start working for various
reasons, one being to gain work experience. This data suggest that starting sophomore year,
students are working more. Sophomore students make up forty-three percent of our participants.

SECTION C3, DO HOURS WORKED AFFECT YOUR SLEEP?

In our research, we compared work hours and leisure hours to see how students are
dividing their time. According to The US Department of Health and Human Services, leisure
time activities are associated with longer life expectancy. Our hypothesis is that students who
work around 20 hours a week tend to balance sleep and leisure hours rather than getting more or
less than one or the other. Of the 93 participants, about 40 people sleep under six hours a night
and therefore have less than 20 hours of leisure time in the week.

SECTION C3, DO HOURS WORKED AFFECT YOUR SLEEP?

In conclusion, students who work 20 hours or more are do not acquire enough sleep or
leisure time. These results are relevant because without the proper amount of sleep and leisure
hours per week, it can negatively affect an individuals mental and physical state. Many illnesses
are linked to high stress levels. Students that are working more can increase the stress levels. As
the charts have shown, nearly half of the participants are working and are students, which leaves
little time for sleep and leisure time.
Originally, we started out wanting to compare the amount of sleep hours a person gets to
stress levels. After looking at our survey question results, we realized that our survey questions
did not necessarily reflect our research question. Therefore, we changed our research question to
one that would better reflect our survey. In the future, we would all spend more time in our group

SECTION C3, DO HOURS WORKED AFFECT YOUR SLEEP?

to ensure that we are asking the right questions that would give us logical results, which would
make sense. After looking at our survey, I realized we should have asked questions like, On a
level of 1-10 how stressed do you generally feel? and Do you think your stress levels affect
your ability to sleep? That way, we would have been able to obtain data that answered our main
question. Overall, we were able to successfully compare how the amount of hours worked in a
week affects the amount a sleep a student gets. We found that students who worked 20 to 30
hours a week also got a equal balance of sleep between 6 and 8 hours.