Q&A With the UCCS Student Health Center: Jefferson Spicher; DNP, FNP-C

Every other week, we ask questions on a health-related topic to a different provider at the Student Health Center here on campus. This week, we asked Jeff Spicher some questions about sleep and energy before finals.

With finals coming up soon, I need more time to study. Do I really need a full eight hours of sleep every night?

This can be a bit tricky to answer. Research has shown that sleep needs vary from person to per­son and between age groups. Some adults do just fine on six or eight hours of sleep a night, while others need nine hours of sleep to function at their optimal level of performance. You should have a good sense of the number of hours that you need to be at your best.

According to research­ers at the National Sleep Foundation, there is good evidence to show that not getting enough sleep decreases your ability to remember and retain in­formation and actually decreases your produc­tivity. These research­ers also note that lack of sleep also increases your risk for illness, motor ve­hicle accidents, obesity, diabetes, depression and remembering new infor­mation.

The best thing to do during finals week is to not change your sleep schedule, maintain your usual number of hours of sleep and try to start studying for your exams as soon as possible. Your will do better on finals if you study over several days instead of pulling that all-nighter.

A lot of energy drinks are packed with B vi­tamins. Can vitamin B supplements really help keep me more energetic and alert while I study?

The answer to this question is no. B vitamins are essential to convert food energy into energy that your cells can use and most of us are get­ting enough B vitamins to maintain this essential function in the foods that we eat.

In fact, in an article written for the Los Ange­les Times (July 14, 2008) by Chris Woolston, titled "B vitamins don't boost energy drink's power," it is noted that mega doses of B vitamins do nothing to boost energy, it is the caffeine in these drinks that gives you a boost.

In this same article, Vic­toria Drake, a researcher with the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University in Corvallis stated that for usual users of energy drinks or vita­min B supplements, this is nothing more than a "gimmick."

My secret to finals suc­cess is a ROCKSTAR energy drink five min­utes before the exam starts. Am I onto some­thing?

Perhaps. In a study by Hunt, Momjian and Wong (2001) at the University of Pennsylvania, the re­searchers found that caf­feine seems to improve test taking capabilities, in particular slightly faster response times, for stu­dents taking exams who regularly consume caf­feine.

In a study that used MRIs to look at brains on caffeine, Dr. Florian Koppelstatter, a radiol­ogy fellow at the Medical University of Innsbruck in Austria, found that there was an increase in the frontal portion of the brain that controls atten­tion and concentration while the subject was us­ing caffeine.

So, it may seem that some caffeine before a test may be helpful, how­ever there is a limit to the positive effects, and too much caffeine can make you jittery, sick to your stomach, unsteady on your feet, make your heart race and give you a dry mouth. These types of symptoms will not en­hance your performance and make it hard to con­centrate while taking a final.  

Do you have health-related questions for the Q&A with the Student Health Center? Email them to scribe.health@gmail.com and we'll publish them here. All questions will be posted anonymously.