WHETHER USING NO-DOZ TO STAY AWAKE OR RELAXATION TAPES TO FALL ASLEEP, MANY HARVARD STUDENTS ARE FINDING THAT THERE IS...

Sleep is to college life as decisiveness is to Ross Perot: elusive, erratic and usually inadequate.

Though insufficient sleep is not usually harmful in the long run, says Dr. Randolph Catlin, chief of mental health at University Health Services (UHS), it can cause increasing short-term psychological and physical problems.

Researchers have found that the average college student gets about 6.87 hours of sleep a night. At Harvard College, that number is probably closer to between five and six. Health officials recommend an average of six to eight.

Most students change their sleep/wake cycle when they leave home. Many fall into a routine of going to bed at 3 or 4 a.m. during the week, getting consistently less sleep than they need.

This cycle usually lasts until the weekend, when a vain attempt is made to catch up by sleeping additional hours.

M. Astrid Moise '95, a biochemistry concentrator, engages in typical college sleep patterns.

"During the week I have to get up at 8 a.m. and I go to bed between 2 and 3 a.m. On Sundays I get 14 hours of sleep," Moise says.

The college sleep/wake cycle is unhealthy for two reasons. First, it causes chronic sleep deprivation, and second, it is interrupted on a regular basis.

While sleep deprivation has long term effects only in severe cases, its short term effects can be frustrating.

Everyone has a time of day at which be or she reaches a peak energy level. Changing a sleep cycle alters the energy peak, which may come at different times of the day and be decreased in intensity, Catlin says.

Recent studies on college students also suggest that lack of sleep affects a person's diet.

Students who get less sleep are more likely to suffer from eating disorders to have disrupted eating patterns, and to be concerned about excess weight, according to a 1990 study published in Perceptual and Motor Skills journal.

Surprisingly, they also have greater perceived levels of energy. Researchers believe that this is the result of a slightly increased metabolic rate. The net result is that students who sleep less eat more, not just because they are up later, but because they have bigger appetites.

Students on a low-sleep schedule may also be more likely to gain weight, since their increased food consumption is usually accompanied by an increase in the percentage of fat in their diets.

Staying Up Late

Every student has stayed up late at one time or another to do a problem set, finish a paper, or even go to a party in the Currier "Ten Man." Somewhere around the 16th waking hour, your eyes start to glaze and your attention span evaporates. But going to sleep would mean kissing your grade, or your date, good-bye.

So what's to be dine? For many students, including philosophy and math concentrator Alp T. Aker '95, the answer is caffeine, which works by stimulating the central nervous system.

Aker, who stays up late studying during the week, says he needs the extra time to get all of his work done. "I drink about three cups of coffee a day," he says.

Although students have been known to use Sudafed, amphetamines (speed) and even cocaine as stimulants, the most popular choice is still caffeine in all its forms.

The average cup of coffee contains about 100 mg per cup, while tea has about half that amount. A can of Coke has 100 mg also, while a can of Jolt has 200 mg. Smaller amounts of caffeine can also be found in chocolate.

An alternative to drinking caffeine is taking it in pill form. Caffeine pills like Vivarin and No-Doz are available over the counter. Vivarin and Maximum Strength No-Doz contain 200 mg of the drug per tablet, while Regular Strength No-Doz has 100 mg.

Representatives from Vivarin warn the public against overuse of the product.

"We cannot recommend more than one tablet every three to four hours," their recorded hot-line message says. "Caffeine can be addictive and Vivarin is only intended to be used for short term purposes, like a long distance drive or to stay late writing a paper."

The primary danger posed by caffeine is that it can overstimulate the body's systems when taken in large doses, resulting in kidney damage and stomach irritation.

And those who become addicted to caffeine experience severe headaches when going through withdrawal from the drug.

Also, external stimulants like caffeine can cause a backlash effect. Though performance level increases in the first 24 hours of use, after that it drops off dramatically.

Hope for the Sleepless

For others, the problem is not how to stay awake but how to fall asleep.

Sleeping pills a temporary solution for some, but ultimately only cause more problems since they inhibit Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, during which dreaming occurs. Lack of REM sleep results in decreased emotional control and thinking ability.

Some sleeping pills like halcion have been known to cause periods of amnesia, and all sleeping pills lose their effectiveness after a few weeks. At that point they can, ironically, even begin to cause drug-induced insomnia.

Small amounts of alcohol, used on an infrequent basis, can also help a person fall asleep. But large amounts or more frequent use decreases REM.

UHS offers a wide variety of treatments for those who are having difficulty sleeping, Catlin says.

Staffers at the health center first investigate whether the disorder is purely physical, since the inability to sleep is often linked to other problems like anxiety and depression. If it is physical, they examine the patient's life pattern--including exercise and former sleep habits.

In some cases, a brief course of tranquilizers is prescribed, although if these are used too frequently, their effectiveness wears off. Tranquilizers are preferable to sleeping pills, Catlin says, because they relax rather than sedate the patient.

UHS staffers also teach relaxation techniques and use biofeedback techniques monitoring vital signs while different methods are attempted. The health center also gives out relaxation tapes to play at bedtime.

If all remedies fail, the effects of severe sleep deprivation will begin to manifest themselves after a night or two of inadequate sleep, Dr. Catlin says.

The initial symptoms of sleep deprivation are confusion and cognitive difficulty. As the condition advances, the individual may begin to feel dissociated from reality, becoming confused about the time or date.

Eventually, the individual may lose judgment and begin to respond inappropriately to stimuli.

"It's a progressively disturbing thing," Dr. Catlin says. "People reach psychotic-like states--but that's in the case of prisoners of war."

"We shouldn't see anything like it in college students," he says.