How Sleep Affects Academic Performance

Sleep is not a mere act of idleness! From an academic perspective, proper sleep is a highly underrated aspect that leads to the enhancement of cognitive skills. Today, we are going to take a look at how sleep affects academic performances in a much more direct manner than most people think. So, let us get straight into it!

At one point of time or another, most of us have probably pulled an all-nighter before those crucial examinations. Despite our bodies giving up, we convinced ourselves otherwise. We kept on pushing by thinking that sleep can wait till the end of exams.

If we had the slightest idea of the horrible repercussions it will have on our body, we would surely have taken out some time to have a nice relaxing sleep!

How Lack of Sleep Affects Study – Tracing the Origin

Before we examine how sleep affects academic performances, it is important to identify what causes them. A bunch of factors contributes to sleeplessness among students – early morning schools, after-school tuition classes, extra-curricular activities, part-time jobs, homework, parental pressures, peer pressure and what not! All of these can lead to irregular sleep cycles, which not only negatively affects the academic performances, but also the physical as well as mental health of a student. You may think that decreasing your sleeping time may give you some extra hours to study but you can improve your grades without studying too hard!

Many people tend to think that they can ‘make up’ for the lack of sleep during the weekends or on their off-days, but they couldn’t be any more wrong.

Negative Effects of Lack of Sleep on Academic Performance

Erratic schedules of going to bed and rising from sleep have been deduced as a major factor behind the academic performances among students from middle school through college. Take a look at some alarming facts.

Fragile Cognition:

Scientists have been trying to decipher the relationship between cognitive function and sleep for decades now. Years of studies have established that sleep is the key factor for cognition and memory consolidation. When an individual is ignoring the urge to sleep, it impacts their immune system, mood, and cognitive behaviour. Synaptic connections that stay active when we are awake are strengthened during sleep. This enables the consolidation of memory.

Weak Attention Span:

Improper sleep is also linked with a lack of attention. When your body doesn’t get adequate sleep, your ability to focus and concentrate is severely compromised. You will end up failing at any task that requires logical reasoning.

Deteriorated Learning:

Loss of sleep not only results in memory impairment but also in learning impairment. When your body doesn’t get proper nighttime sleep, it severely disturbs the functionalities of your brain, thereby negatively affecting your performance. In addition, it also makes one suffer from decreased vigilance.

How Insufficient Sleep Hinders the Body Clock

Insomniac students tend to have more mental health issues than students without insomnia. As we have stated above, the idea of making up for the lack of sleep on weekdays by sleeping for long hours on weekends is absolutely ridiculous. This is because when you wake up at a time on weekends that is post the time which your internal body clock expects, it sends your body and mind into a shock. Fast forward to the weekdays, your body has to adjust to the early timings back again. This constant shifting of the body clock runs havoc to your mind, adversely affecting it.

The body clock, which is also known as the circadian clock is extremely sensitive and takes time to adjust to changes in its schedule. The biggest element influencing the circadian clock is the patterns of light exposure. When the body is exposed to different light exposure patterns pertaining to rising up in the morning, it puts an absolute spanner in the works.

It invariably leads to a misalignment between the sleep-wake cycle and the circadian clock. This is why students are recommended to not use electronic light-emitting devices such as computers, mobile phones, iPads, etc. before sleeping.

What Do the Experts Say?

Andrew J. K. Phillips, Ph.D., Biophysicist at the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Brigham and Women’s Hospital has stated that going to bed and waking up at the same time every day is as important as the number of hours one sleeps. A research conducted by Brigham and Women’s Hospital has shown that students with regular sleep patterns tend to have better average school grades. 

Lawrence Epstein, a member of AASM (American Academy of Sleep Medicine) is of the opinion that a lack of sleep not only affects whether a pupil can stay awake and attentive in class but also how they perform. He has stated that adequate sleep helps students deliver their peak performance. Those who get adequate sleep perform better on memory and motor tasks than those who get irregular periods of sleep.

On this same topic, Clete A. Kushida, Director of the Stanford University Center for Human Sleep Research has said that the degree of daytime alertness is the most crucial measure of how lack of sleep affects academic performance. Dr. Kushida has further stated that if a person is regularly fatigued during the daytime, chances are high that he or she is not getting an adequate amount of sleep.

Quality vs Quantity of Sleep

The degree of daytime alertness is essentially influenced by two primary factors – sleep quality and sleep quantity. For a student, the need to maintain an optimal level of both the factors cannot be overemphasized enough. 

Just counting the number of hours you spend in bed sleeping is not enough; you need to take a deeper look at the restfulness of your sleeping period as well. A proper balance between sleep quality and quantity will help you wake up rejuvenated, thereby contributing to your alertness and cognitive behaviour, which in turn, will improve your academic performance. 

When you get an uninterrupted period of sleep, it helps your body achieve the optimal level of restorative sleep. Ideally, eight hours of sleep is sufficient for everyone, but since everyone’s body is different, you need to judge whether you need 1-2 hours of more/less sleep or not.

The quality of sleep is judged by how quickly you fall asleep after hitting the bed (the ideal time is within 30 minutes), how frequently you wake up (it shouldn’t be more than once), and how quickly you drift back to sleep (it should be within 20 minutes). 

Poor sleep quality is marked by continuous staring at the ceiling or restlessness, frequent awakenings, among others.

Get the Best Academic Performance

It’s about time you start analyzing how seriously lack of sleep can affect study and overall academic performance. As a student, you need to give your body the rest it deserves to stay at the top of the game.  However, just proper sleep before the day of the exam won’t suffice. You have to develop a regular pattern of sleep to get into that zone. Remember, a longer, regular duration of sleep will undoubtedly result in better grades.

Furthermore, if you need an expert guidance in any subjects, you can get the best online tuition from the most qualified teachers at TutorReal Guru. Let us know your requirements and get started with the best online learning experience.