Who Needs Sleep?

Staying awake for seventeen hours can decrease performance as much as a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%. The average college student sleeps less than six hours per night, and studies show that 20% pull all-nighters once a month. Students who attend class after an all-nighter might as well show up drunk. Sleep seemingly appears last on college students’ “to-do lists”; friends, parties, consistent Internet perusing, classes, work, and exercise all take precedence. While most college students believe they can get away with sleeping six hours or less, professionals recommend at least eight hours of sleep to avoid restricted scholastic performance and a slowed metabolism.

A recent study on sleep deprivation found that approximately 60% of college students are sleep deprived. However, sleep deprivation is such a precarious term: how many hours of lost sleep are actually needed to put our bodies in a “deprived” state? Ying-Hui Fu and her colleagues, researchers at the University of California-San Francisco, have recently identified a genetic mutation in which people were observed to have short sleep cycles, and therefore needed only six hours of sleep. Unfortunately, this gene is expected to occur in only 3% of people. Those with normal, 90-min sleep cycles require much more than the six hours those with the rare mutation are found to need. In two similar studies, one performed by David Dinges (University of Pennsylvania) and the other by Dinges’ colleague Gregory Belenky (Walter Reed Army Institute of Research) sleepiness measures were tested by PVT (psychomotor vigilance task) to determine how much sleep is actually needed. Dinges’ study assigned subjects to sleep four, six, or eight hours, while Belenky‘s subjects to three, five, seven, and nine hours. When the two studies were compared, the best response to PVT was found in those sleeping eight hours a night. Well, those sleeping nine hours showed similar results to those sleeping eight hours, but let’s be real: who has time for that? Therefore, the conclusion is clear that in order to think clearly and perform our best, sleeping eight hours a night is extremely important!


Now that it is established that getting eight hours of sleep is necessary, let’s talk about the effects of sleep deprivation. While the average college student portrays a slight feeling of invincibility, thinking that your body is able to overcome everything you put it through is simply the result of a tired mind making uneducated decisions. According to a St. Lawrence University study, GPA is has a direct correlation to sleep. After studying the sleep patterns of 111 students, Pamela Thatcher, associate professor of psychology at St. Lawrence University, found that students who frequently pulled all-nighters had an average GPA of 2.9, while those who had never pulled an all-nighter had an average GPA of 3.1.

Before further explaining how sleep has so much of an effect on GPA, it may be necessary to understand what sleep is, how it works, and its many stages. Sleep is a state in which the brain is either resting or very active, filled with a complex series of stages that repeat themselves throughout a night’s sleep. Sleep is characterized by two distinct states: REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and non-REM sleep. A normal cycle of sleep lasts approximately 90 minutes and is depicted by five stages, each defined by specific electrical patterns in the brain and changes of muscle activity, breathing and eye movements. The figure below shows the cyclical pattern of the stages throughout one night of sleep.

NREM sleep is made up of stages 1-4 and ranges from very light sleep to deep sleep. Stage 1 sleep is the transition period from wakefulness to sleep and may be considered the “dozing” period. During this stage, the muscles begin to relax and breathing slows, but the person may still be awakened easily. Stage 2 sleep is often considered the “official onset of consolidated sleep.” Throughout stage 2, heart rate slows, body temperature begins to drop and breathing becomes even more regular. Stages 3 and 4 are considered stages of deep sleep, with stage 4 being more intense than stage 3. Slow-wave sleep begins as large and slow delta waves (brain waves) are observed. Muscles begin to relax even further and it may be difficult to arouse the person sleeping in this stage. The 5th stage of sleep is REM sleep, a stage referred to as “paradoxical sleep” because brain wave activity is similar to that of an awakened state. REM sleep is characterized by muscle paralysis, occasional eyelid fluttering and irregular breathing patterns. Although dreams may occur in other stages, it is thought that the complicated, plot-driven dreams occur during this stage.

Going back to sleep and GPA correlation, research performed by Born, Rasch, and Gais (University of Lubeck) identified sleep as a “state that optimizes the consolidation of newly acquired information in memory.” Therefore, staying up all night to cram for a test will not give your brain the time to process the information. Hippocampus-dependent memories (memories associated with an emotion) take root in the brain simply with slow-wave sleep, while memories independent of the hippocampus (boring schoolwork) require high longer amounts of REM sleep. Since slow-wave sleep makes up a majority of each sleep cycle while REM sleep only takes up about 20%, it is imperative that one sleeps the required eight hours per night to attain multiple REM cycles and to continue having REM sleep. When threatened by sleep deprivation, the brain tends to opt towards lighter sleep (less REM sleep). In addition, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center found that when asleep, memory is shifted to “more efficient storage regions within the brain.” Therefore, when awake, it takes less effort to remember all of the studied exam material. So, in order to make recall come easily during a test, sleeping eight hours is essential.

How many of you are concerned with gaining the “Freshman 15?” In recent studies, it has been proven that how much we sleep affects “blood sugar levels, hormones that control appetite, and even the brain’s perception of high-calorie foods.” By sleeping less, college students are essentially ridding their brain of the ability to decipher when they are actually hungry. In addition, the Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a study stating “sleep deprivation impairs the ability of fat cells to respond to insulin, the hormone that regulates metabolism.” In this study, seven healthy men and women were restricted to 4.5 hours of sleep per night. After four nights of sleep deprivation, blood tests exposed that “their fat cells’ sensitivity to insulin dropped by 30%.” According to the senior author of the study, Matthew Brady, this is the “equivalent of metabolically aging someone 10 to 20 years.” While it is not likely that college students will be getting only 4.5 hours of sleep on a consistent basis, any slight reduction of sleep from the recommended eight hours will reduce the body’s ability to process insulin, thus reducing their metabolism. Regardless, who of us wants to reduce our metabolism at all by doing something that we could easily prevent?

Because of the many distractions in college, getting eight hours of sleep may be a lot easier said than done. But it is also a lot easier to prevent a habit from forming than it is to try to break a habit. Before leaving for college, becoming educated on the importance of adequate sleep and even learning tips on how to insure making sleep a priority. First, learn how to manage your time wisely; keep an on-going to-do list and use that to identify what is most important and how much time should be spent on it. Second, try to space out work over a few days. There are very few classes in college that meet two days in a row. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that you will be given an assignment that is due the next day! As soon as you receive an assignment, whether it’s due in two days or two months, put it on your to-do list. Figure out how much time it will take you to complete it and begin working on it immediately. Third, don’t procrastinate! Whenever you sit down to do work, FOCUS. Turn off your phone and minimize distractions on your computer. Don’t, however, work for more than a few hours straight. Your brain cannot physically adequately focus for than an hour at a time. Instead, work diligently for 30 minutes and take a 5-10 minute break. By giving your brain time to relax, you will free up a lot of leisure time by allowing it to maintain focus whenever you are actually working!

Sleep deprivation is hard to reverse because it often comes about as a “catch 22.” As school continues to place new avenues and different categories of stress on students, there is a tendency to stay up later, attempting to work hard throughout the night. By staying up late, whether working or hanging out with friends, college students are burning the candle at both ends and not allowing their bodies to function properly. Not getting eight hours of sleep is extremely detrimental to the health and school performance of students. To circumvent the habit of sleep deprivation from beginning, don’t buy into the scam that less sleep is acceptable. Plan ahead and don’t put your body in a position to show you what happens when you don’t get the sleep you need. Not doing so does not result in anything positive for you, your brain, or your body!