It is exam time and students often study all night, sleeping a few hours during day. But, is this advisable? Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, senior consultant, internal medicine, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, says: “It is generally not advisable for students to study all night and sleep only a few hours during the day, especially if this pattern continues for weeks or months.” There are a few reasons why this type of sleep pattern is problematic:
Sleep deprivation: Getting few hours of sleep at night (3-5 hours) accumulates into a sleep debt and leads to physical and mental fatigue over time. This can impact academic performance and cognition.
Disrupted circadian rhythms: Staying up at night and sleeping during the day goes against the body’s intrinsic circadian clocks and sleep-wake cycles. This disruption can negatively affect mood, concentration, memory and learning.
Poor quality sleep: Trying to sleep during daylight hours usually leads to poorer quality and insufficient sleep even if the same number of hours are logged.
Increased stress: Lack of sleep tends to increase production of stress hormones like cortisol. Excess stress can work against effective studying and exam performance.
While some short-term all-nighters may be unavoidable, it is best for students to maintain a regular nighttime sleeping schedule for optimal academic achievement, mental health and wellbeing.
Impact on cognition
Getting insufficient or irregular sleep has demonstrated negative impacts on areas of cognition vital to learning, including attention, working memory, long-term recall, and cognitive flexibility. Sleep disruptions hamper the brain’s capacity to sustain vigilant focus for long periods. This makes concentrating on academics much more difficult. Working memory, which involves temporarily storing information to manipulate, also shrinks when deprived of regular quality sleep. Students lose the ability to actively hold as much information in their minds essential for learning new concepts. Additionally, consolidating information from short-term into longer-term memory depends greatly on stable sleep architecture. Disruption impedes these memory and retention processes critical for performing well on tests and exams. Insufficient sleep also limits cognitive flexibility, the ability to see information from different perspectives and make novel connections between concepts. This dynamic thinking fuels problem solving and creativity. Essentially, the cognition most central to academic success suffers greatly without adequate, properly-timed sleep. Attempting to learn while chronically sleep deprived handicaps focus, memory, and integrative thinking capacities vital for students to reach their academic potential.
Recommended zzz time
The recommended minimum amount of sleep experts suggest for adults’ brains to function optimally is 7 hours per night on a regular basis. Getting fewer than that builds up a sleep debt over time, leading to impaired cognition, focus, productivity and mental health. While some temporary nights of fewer hours may be unavoidable, routinely sleeping less than 7 hours risks accumulating sleep deprivation. This takes a toll on proper brain functioning essential for mental sharpness, learning ability, memory, decision making skills, emotional regulation and performance.
The risks to the brain and body rise significantly as sleep drops below 6 hours consistently, indicating stages of chronic partial sleep deprivation. Effects may include reduced vigilance and attentiveness, decreased working memory capacity, lack of cognitive flexibility in thinking, and vulnerability to mental illnesses like depression or anxiety disorders. Research warns that less than 5 hours may severely impact brain health long term. Essentially, 7-9 hours remains the recommended healthy range for adults, with 7 hours being the bare minimum threshold before mental functioning shows impairment.
Small naps advisable?
About 15-20 minutes of power nap can provide temporary alertness and performance boosts when struggling with fatigue from missing sleep. In situations involving short-term sleep deprivation, like pulling an all-nighter, a properly timed short nap can supply just enough restoration to bridge cognitive function until getting restorative sleep. The brief refreshment supports temporary productivity gains. However, such short naps should not serve as replacements for regular, sufficient sleep on a chronic basis. Despite cognitive gains after napping, nighttime sleep remains essential for optimal health and mental sharpness long term.
Additionally, over-napping risks disruption of healthy circadian rhythms and sleep-wake cycles. If requiring frequent naps or longer daytime sleep despite adequate nighttime rest, an underlying sleep disorder or health problem may need medical evaluation. For the average healthy person with good sleep habits though, the occasional brief nap, like a 20-minute siesta, can provide welcome relief when dealing with a typical sleep loss.
