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  Developing Optimal Sleep Patterns to Improve College Athletes Athletic Performance

  Isabella Quintero

  College athletes have a highly demanding schedule, which often interferes with their athletic performance due to lack of sleep. For college athletes to recover appropriately, optimal sleep patterns are essential for their physiological and psychological systems, or else they will not perform. College athletes have more going against them compared to the regular college student. Sports practice, strength and conditioning sessions, team meetings, travel for games, athletic training rehab, class schedule, and studies hours. Where does the athlete have time to eat and sleep? Luckily the athletes' schedule is made up by the coach or chief of operations. It is up to them to sleep on time. As a strength and conditioning specialist, I know sleep is critical for athlete recovery and performance but how much sleep is the question that needs to be answered. Finding the correct amount of sleep for college athletes may lead to more effective practices, training sessions, and, most importantly, wins. The challenge with this is getting the athlete and coach to understand why optimal sleep is key for success, and often coaches make their lifting sessions at 5:00 or 6:00 AM to know the athlete did not go to bed on time, already setting them up for failure. Studies found higher-performing athletes are associated with total nocturnal sleep time than athletes who nap during the day and less at night.

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  Surreal Use of Geography: Gris

  Kaitlyn Rayburn

  Movies, TV shows, books, and videogames allow for a story to be told; however, there is a basic concept that we've all learned is necessary to create said story: a setting. For a narrative/a story/ a game you must have a place for a character to navigate through the world. This leads to exploration, and eventually conflict. Geographically a setting is called place. My research focuses on exploring the use of setting as a part of the plot. Gris is a platformer video game about a woman maneuvering through an unfavorable environment and features unusual imagery to convey emotions to make the player feel as though they share the same emotions as the protagonist. This imagery is constructed through various places, landscapes, and pieces of architecture that are utilized to reinforce these expressed emotions. We are taken on an adventure of working through grief by moving through each 'stage' as literal places we can see and interact with. In this paper I intend to explain that three components are brought together to tell this story: psychology, art, and geography.

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  Graphic Design, Symposium Program Contest, Luke Reynolds

  Luke Reynolds

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  2021 JSU Student Symposium Proceedings

  Shannon Robertson

  These proceedings from the 2021 JSU Student Symposium were compiled by Shannon Robertson, Associate Professor of Psychology.

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  The Effectiveness of Dry Needling in Sport-Related Injuries

  Greta Romei

  Dry needling is a reasonably newer therapy only introduced in 1980 by Peter Baldry, a British physician. The therapy is modeled after the Chinese acupuncture technique. Dry needling relies on the placement of needles inside of the so-called “trigger points.” When muscle contracts too frequently, causing “tetanus”, the actin and myosin fibers cannot slide past each other, creating a knot that is defined as a trigger point. The ultimate goal of dry needling is to resolve these knots and repristinate the muscle fiber's original condition and the sliding model. In this review, we analyzed several cases and opinions in which dry needling was performed and the general thoughts that the population has over the therapy. Although this therapy is considerably new, many studies have been conducted regarding the effects of several injuries and their long-term benefits. The main results pointed out how dry needling is one of the only therapies resolving certain conditions that remain untreatable with other therapies. Simultaneously, there is a need for further research since most of the population is still scarred by a needle and the pain that can be felt. The review analyzes positive and negative experiences from those who have experienced the treatment and discusses the results obtained in many injuries. Today, many benefits of this treatment have been discovered, and a variety of people have benefitted from the effects of dry needling; however, this treatment area warrants further research.

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  Graphic Design, Symposium Program Contest, Tayla Trail

  Tayla Trail

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  Project Run

  Eric Wade, Simon Hopkins, and Tyler Johnson

  Project Run was designed and created with the sole purpose of being a platformer game. This game takes you through three levels, a beginner level, and intermediate level, and an expert level. The beginner level shows you the controls, and gives a simple space to learn the mechanics of the game. The intermediate level provides a more difficult challenge, giving way to a more jump-based puzzle instead of wall running as the first level was based around. The expert level is a combination of both jumping and wall running. There are some tricky jumps that you must time right to cross. There is also a section where you must time a jump into a wall run to prove that you have the skill to pass the level. At the end you exit the cave and end the game.

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  Graphic Design, Symposium Program Contest, Jake Wolven

  Jake Wolven