It took a long time for me to develop a routine sleep schedule and a terrifyingly short time for me to fall back into my old one this semester. Last summer, I made it my goal to get to sleep on time every night. It should not have been as difficult as it was since I had nothing to do at the end most days but, nonetheless, I could usually coerce myself into staying up an extra hour.
I realized, at that time, that I did not have a healthy relationship with sleep. But what to do about it? After staying up late doing homework and studying with my friends during the school year, sleeping late had become almost normal. My friends always confess to staying up late without a second thought. I remember that even in high school it was thought to be a sort of right-of-passage to stay up late or pull an all-nighter in order to finish an assignment. To get myself out of the bad habit of staying up late, I realized I would have to do the inconceivable and ignore my peers.
Although the effects of sleep deprivation are well-known, most of the college students I know tend not to take them very seriously. Side effects can range from the annoying like excessive yawning, headaches, and eye bags to the serious like putting us at increased risk for obesity and type 2 diabetes. Some of the other common symptoms of sleep loss may sound all-too-familiar: confusion, memory lapses, increased stress (due to a release of hormones in the body), and decreased reaction time. Hence, sleep loss can also affect performance in school.
It may seem ridiculous, but staying up late to do homework will probably decrease rather than increase your chances of getting an A in a class. Large amounts of sleep deprivation, which I and other college students seem prone to during stressful periods like finals week, will more likely than not hurt your ability to perform well on tests and to write essays. Researchers have shown, even, that sleep loss can impair response speed and accuracy on a level equal to legal alcohol intoxication.
In my experience, students that stay up late usually continue to do so because they believe they are doing themselves more help than harm. Studies, however, show that the reality is quite the opposite. We can call ourselves better or more dedicated students all we want when we stay up late to do work. The reality, however, is that, in doing so, we are giving ourselves a physical and mental handicap that hurts our chances to do well. We must ask ourselves: if we wake up, gulp down coffee, and manage to drag ourselves to class (barely) in a pair of sweatpants that we wore to bed the night before, are we truly succeeding as students? Have we learned anything about living and working in the real world?
This is finals week, I’m challenging myself and you to get to sleep on time, to show that you can beat the odds and avoid pulling all-nighters. The best I can recommend is that you get the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep in the week leading up to your exams and create a steady but flexible studying schedule you can use during that time. You may be surprised as I have been in the past when your friends ask you how you can look so good and feel so confident going into exam week. The answer is so simple: I get to sleep on time.
