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Associations of time spent on homework or studying with nocturnal sleep behavior and depression symptoms in adolescents from Singapore

Sing Chen Yeo, MSc Sing Chen Yeo Affiliations Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore Search for articles by this author
Jacinda Tan, BSc Jacinda Tan Affiliations Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore Search for articles by this author
Joshua J. Gooley, PhD Joshua J. Gooley Correspondence Corresponding author: Joshua J. Gooley, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore, 8 College Road, Singapore 117549, Singapore Contact Affiliations Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Program in Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore Search for articles by this author

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How Does Homework Affect Students Sleep?

Published: June 21st, 2023

Exploring how homework affects students' sleep is an essential part of understanding the overall health and academic performance of our youth. The correlation between heavy workload from assignments and sleep deprivation has been a subject of multiple studies, with compelling findings.

Understanding the correlation between homework and teenage stress

Exploring the impact on quality sleep due to excessive homework, how late-night study impacts the circadian rhythm, the link between disturbed sleep patterns and academic performance, unpacking research findings linking heavy homework load with mental health issues, implications for future educational policies regarding home-based tasks, evaluating pros & cons related to assigning extensive workloads at elementary levels, suggesting alternatives for effective learning without compromising children's wellbeing, alfie kohn's perspective on education system practices, proposing changes toward balanced school schedules, assessing potential benefits shifting school start times based upon nsf recommendations, effective time management strategies, the impact of sleep deprivation on students, does homework affect sleep schedules, what percentage of students lose sleep due to homework, why does school cause sleep deprivation, why is sleep more important than homework.

This blog post delves into the impact that excessive homework can have on high school students' quality sleep, and how it might disrupt their natural circadian rhythm or sleep cycle. We will also explore its implications on mental health issues among younger kids who are often encouraged to go to bed earlier but struggle due to late-night study sessions.

The role of American education system practices in contributing to student's lack of adequate rest will be examined along with Alfie Kohn’s perspective about current education policies. Additionally, we'll discuss early school start times as another potential burden leading towards disturbed sleeping patterns.

Finally, we aim at proposing some changes for more balanced school schedules and providing tips for effectively managing time amidst academic responsibilities and extracurricular activities without being sleep deprived.

The Impact of Homework on Teenage Stress and Sleep

Homework is a major source of stress for teenagers, affecting their sleep patterns. According to studies, about 75% of high school students report grades and homework as significant stressors. This anxiety can lead to sleep deprivation, with over 50% of students reporting insufficient rest.

A heavy workload not only affects academic performance but also disrupts the normal sleep cycle. The pressure to excel academically leads many students into a vicious cycle where they stay up late completing tasks, wake up early for school, and end up being sleep deprived.

This lack of rest impairs cognitive functions like memory retention and problem-solving skills - both crucial for academic success. Furthermore, inadequate sleep may lead to ailments such as reduced immunity or persistent tiredness.

Sleep experts recommend that younger kids should go to bed earlier than teens because their biological clock naturally prompts them to feel sleepy around 8-9 PM. However, this becomes challenging when burdened with loads of assignments which extend their screen time significantly beyond recommended limits.

The blue light emitted by electronic devices used for studying suppresses melatonin production - a hormone that regulates our body's internal clock determining when we feel sleepy or awake (National Sleep Foundation). Consequently, these factors combined make falling asleep more difficult leading towards disrupted sleeping patterns ultimately affecting overall well-being including mental health status alongside academic performance negatively.

In conclusion, there needs to be an urgent reevaluation of how much work is assigned outside class hours considering potential adverse effects upon student's health, especially concerning adequate rest necessary for optimal functioning throughout day-to-day activities, whether within academia or other extracurricular responsibilities undertaken during leisure periods post-school schedules.

Analyzing Sleep Patterns Among Stressed Students

High schoolers are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of sleep deprivation due to the demands of juggling academics and extracurriculars. The pressure of balancing academics with extracurricular activities can lead to late nights and early mornings, leaving them feeling perpetually tired and impacting their academic performance.

The human body operates on a 24-hour internal clock known as the circadian rhythm. This biological process regulates our sleep-wake cycle, among other things. When students stay up late studying or completing homework, they disrupt this natural rhythm which can result in a range of health issues including chronic fatigue and weakened immunity.

Screen time is another factor that exacerbates this issue. Many students use electronic devices for research or writing assignments before bed, exposing themselves to blue light which further interferes with their circadian rhythms.

Regular slumber is a must for cognitive functions, such as memory consolidation and problem-solving aptitude - fundamental aspects of learning. Multiple studies have shown that when these patterns are disturbed due to excessive homework or late-night study sessions, it can negatively affect academic performance.

Poor Concentration: Lack of adequate rest makes focusing on tasks more difficult, leading to decreased productivity during study hours.
Inability To Retain Information: During deep stages of sleep, information from short-term memory gets transferred into long-term storage enabling better recall later; deprived individuals miss out on this critical process.
Deteriorating Mental Health: Chronic lack of rest has been linked with increased levels of anxiety and depression amongst teenagers, impacting overall wellbeing and indirectly affecting grades too.

A report by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggests there's an urgent need for schools to address these concerns seriously, considering the potential repercussions over students' physical and mental health alongside scholastic achievements. Making sure they get enough quality rest each night is essential for optimal functioning throughout the day, both inside and outside the classroom environments.

Investigating Time Spent on Homework and Its Effects on Mental Health

The amount of time spent on homework and studying significantly affects students' mental health. Multiple studies have shown that an excessive workload can lead to depression, stress, and sleep deprivation .

A comprehensive study involving 2386 adolescents assessed various aspects, including self-rated health, overweight status, and depression symptoms, alongside time spent on homework/studying. The researchers used ten different multiple linear regression models to test the association with the global Kutcher Adolescent Depression Scale score. This approach allowed them to analyze how each aspect correlates with the others.

The results were revealing: there was a clear correlation between increased hours dedicated to home-based tasks and higher levels of depressive tendencies among high school students . These effects weren't limited only to academic performance but extended into their personal lives as well, affecting relationships, participation rates in extracurricular activities , and more.

This data suggests that we need a more balanced approach when it comes to assigning workloads at schools. Instead of piling up assignments indiscriminately, educators should aim for an optimal balance where learning is enhanced rather than hindered by excessive amounts of homework.

In light of this information, some countries are already taking steps towards reducing screen time requirements, especially during after-school hours. This allows younger kids to go to bed earlier, improving their sleep cycle quality significantly, which ultimately leads to better cognitive functioning the next day at school or other engagements they might have outside the academic context, like part-time jobs or family duties.

To sum up, a healthy balance between academic and other life obligations is essential to avoid potential repercussions in all aspects of a student's life. Neglecting to strike a balance between academic and other responsibilities can have severe repercussions, not only in terms of grades but also emotionally, socially, and mentally. Therefore, it is imperative to address this issue promptly and effectively with all stakeholders involved in the education sector worldwide today, tomorrow, and onwards too.

Excessive Workload Strain from Assignments in Younger Kids

The ongoing discussion about the implications of homework for younger students has drawn attention from educators, parents, and researchers. While assignments can reinforce what students learn during school hours, evidence supporting benefits from home-based tasks remains scarce before high-school levels. This is concerning considering the potential adverse effects an excessive workload can have on young minds.

On one hand, homework can instill discipline and help develop good study habits. On the other hand, too much of it could lead to sleep deprivation among younger kids who should ideally be going to bed earlier. The AAP suggests that 6-12 year olds should have 9-12 hours of rest, however this can be hard to attain when they are inundated with assignments.

Besides affecting their sleep cycle, overburdening them with academic responsibilities also leaves little room for extracurricular activities which play a crucial role in their overall development. It may even result in screen time replacing physical activity as children turn towards digital platforms to complete their assignments.

Rather than piling up work indiscriminately, schools could consider adopting strategies aimed at enhancing learning while ensuring the well-being of students. For instance, project-based learning could be an effective alternative where students actively explore real-world problems and challenges, thereby gaining deeper knowledge.

In addition to this approach would be limiting daily homework duration per grade level or introducing "homework-free" days during weekends or holidays providing ample rest periods essential for growth development amongst younger kids.

This shift not only ensures that our future generations aren't sleep deprived due to unnecessary academic pressure but also fosters a love for lifelong learning - something far more valuable than mere grades obtained through rote memorization.

American Education's Role In Student Sleep Deprivation

It's common for students in the US to be sleep deprived , not just because of academic pressures but also due to extracurricular activities . Late nights and early mornings disrupt a healthy sleep cycle , affecting student wellbeing.

Educational critic Alfie Kohn argues that the American education system emphasizes homework without considering its impact on student wellbeing. Many tasks assigned do not enhance learning but rather contribute towards stress and sleep deprivation among students. You can read more about his thoughts in his article titled " The Truth About Homework: Needless Assignments Persist Because of Widespread Misconceptions About Learning. "

Kohn suggests a shift towards assigning work aimed at enhancing learning rather than piling it up indiscriminately. Schools should recognize the importance of adequate rest for optimal functioning.

Reduce homework loads: Lightening the load could help alleviate some of the pressure students feel, allowing them time to relax and get enough sleep each night.
Consider late start times: Multiple studies suggest that starting school later in the morning could have numerous benefits including improved attendance rates and higher alertness, reducing instances of depressive tendencies significantly. (National Sleep Foundation (NSF))
Promote good sleep hygiene: Schools can educate students about good sleep habits such as maintaining consistent bedtimes and wake-up times, limiting screen time before bedtime, and creating quiet, dark sleeping environments.

The key takeaway here is balance - between academics, extracurricular activities, family responsibilities, and personal downtime - which includes getting sufficient restful sleep every night.

Early School Start Times - An Additional Burden

Many adolescents in the US are finding that having to get up at sunrise is more of an encumbrance than a blessing. Parents and educators alike have reported that these early start times are inhibiting productivity throughout daytime schedules.

The National Sleep Foundation (NSF), an organization dedicated to improving health and well-being through sleep education and advocacy, suggests shifting school timings as one possible solution. This adjustment could result in improved attendance rates along with higher alertness among students during class hours.

The NSF study indicated that adjusting the school start time from 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM produced tangible improvements in student performance. The extra hour allowed teenagers' natural sleep cycle to align better with their academic schedule leading them to feel less sleep deprived.

Better Attendance: Schools noted fewer tardies and absences after implementing later start times.
Increase In Grades: Students showed improvement in core subjects like Math and English.
Mental Health Benefits: A decrease was observed in instances of depressive tendencies significantly among students.

This shift not only helped improve academic outcomes but also had positive effects on mental health as teens were able to get adequate rest without having to sacrifice extracurricular activities or family duties.

The idea of starting schools later isn't new; however, its implementation has been slow due largely because changing such ingrained societal norms takes time. But if we want our younger kids performing optimally while avoiding unnecessary strain caused by excessive workload or screen time then we need to rethink how we structure our day-to-day lives. Research has demonstrated that inadequate rest can detrimentally affect our health and wellness, so it is essential to ensure we are getting enough sleep by retiring earlier and limiting screen time before bed.

Balancing Academic Responsibilities With Other Duties

As a student, you're expected to juggle academic responsibilities with other duties. Yet, it can be a challenge to effectively manage such a hectic schedule. Homework alone can take up to four hours a day, and that's not counting extracurricular activities or part-time jobs. So, how can you manage your time effectively amidst these multifarious responsibilities?

The key to managing your diverse obligations lies in effective time management strategies . Here are some tips that could help:

Prioritize tasks: Not all assignments are created equal. Some require more effort and attention than others. Prioritizing your work can help you focus on what's most important first.
Create a schedule: Having a set routine for studying can make it easier to stick to your commitments and avoid procrastination.
Leverage technology: There are numerous apps available designed specifically for helping students manage their workload efficiently.
Avoid multitasking: Multitasking often leads to mistakes and decreased productivity. Rather than attempting to juggle multiple tasks, give your full attention to one task until it is finished before progressing onto the next.

Sleep deprivation among high school students is a serious issue that needs urgent addressing. Multiple studies reveal that the majority of teenagers receive only six to eight hours of sleep per night despite needing more for optimal functioning. This lack of sleep not only affects academic performance but also overall health and wellbeing.

In addition, extracurricular activities and screen time can also affect younger kids' sleep cycle. The American education system has been criticized for promoting this unhealthy trend by assigning excessive amounts of homework without considering individual capacities or needs.

To combat this problem, parents need support from schools in ensuring children go to bed earlier while limiting their exposure to electronic devices during evening hours. This can significantly improve the quality of rest received each night, reducing instances of depressive tendencies associated with inadequate slumber patterns amongst adolescents today.

FAQs in Relation to How Does Homework Affect Students Sleep

Yes, excessive homework can lead to late-night studying, causing students to have inadequate sleep.

Around 56% of students reported losing sleep over schoolwork according to a Stanford study .

Schools may contribute to students' sleep deprivation through early start times and heavy academic loads.

Sleep is crucial for cognitive functions , including memory consolidation which aids in learning; overworking could hinder these processes.

Is Homework Ruining Your Sleep?

Excessive homework can negatively impact students' mental and physical health, leading to stress and lack of sleep.

Teachers can help by coordinating assignment deadlines and exploring alternatives like home-based tasks for younger children.

It's important for educators to recognize the effects of heavy academic loads on student productivity and well-being.

According to a study by the National Sleep Foundation, teenagers need 8-10 hours of sleep per night to function at their best.

Don't let homework rob you of your Z's - prioritize your health and well-being!

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Homework, Sleep, and the Student Brain

At some point, every parent wishes their high school aged student would go to bed earlier as well as find time to pursue their own passions -- or maybe even choose to relax. This thought reemerged as I reread Anna Quindlen's commencement speech, A Short Guide to a Happy Life. The central message of this address, never actually stated, was: "Get a life."

But what prevents students from "getting a life," especially between September and June? One answer is homework.

Favorable Working Conditions

As a history teacher at St. Andrew's Episcopal School and director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning , I want to be clear that I both give and support the idea of homework. But homework, whether good or bad, takes time and often cuts into each student's sleep, family dinner, or freedom to follow passions outside of school. For too many students, homework is too often about compliance and "not losing points" rather than about learning.

Most schools have a philosophy about homework that is challenged by each parent's experience doing homework "back in the day." Parents' common misconception is that the teachers and schools giving more homework are more challenging and therefore better teachers and schools. This is a false assumption. The amount of homework your son or daughter does each night should not be a source of pride for the quality of a school. In fact, I would suggest a different metric when evaluating your child's homework. Are you able to stay up with your son or daughter until he or she finishes those assignments? If the answer is no, then too much homework is being assigned, and you both need more of the sleep that, according to Daniel T. Willingham , is crucial to memory consolidation.

I have often joked with my students, while teaching the Progressive Movement and rise of unions between the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, that they should consider striking because of how schools violate child labor laws. If school is each student's "job," then students are working hours usually assigned to Washington, DC lawyers (combing the hours of the school day, school-sponsored activities, and homework). This would certainly be a risky strategy for changing how schools and teachers think about homework, but it certainly would gain attention. (If any of my students are reading this, don't try it!)

So how can we change things?

The Scientific Approach

In the study "What Great Homework Looks Like" from the journal Think Differently and Deeply , which connects research in how the brain learns to the instructional practice of teachers, we see moderate advantages of no more than two hours of homework for high school students. For younger students, the correlation is even smaller. Homework does teach other important, non-cognitive skills such as time management, sustained attention, and rule following, but let us not mask that as learning the content and skills that most assignments are supposed to teach.

Homework can be a powerful learning tool -- if designed and assigned correctly. I say "learning," because good homework should be an independent moment for each student or groups of students through virtual collaboration. It should be challenging and engaging enough to allow for deliberate practice of essential content and skills, but not so hard that parents are asked to recall what they learned in high school. All that usually leads to is family stress.

But even when good homework is assigned, it is the student's approach that is critical. A scientific approach to tackling their homework can actually lead to deepened learning in less time. The biggest contributor to the length of a student's homework is task switching. Too often, students jump between their work on an assignment and the lure of social media. But I have found it hard to convince students of the cost associated with such task switching. Imagine a student writing an essay for AP English class or completing math proofs for their honors geometry class. In the middle of the work, their phone announces a new text message. This is a moment of truth for the student. Should they address that text before or after they finish their assignment?

Delayed Gratification

When a student chooses to check their text, respond and then possibly take an extended dive into social media, they lose a percentage of the learning that has already happened. As a result, when they return to the AP essay or honors geometry proof, they need to retrace their learning in order to catch up to where they were. This jump, between homework and social media, is actually extending the time a student spends on an assignment. My colleagues and I coach our students to see social media as a reward for finishing an assignment. Delaying gratification is an important non-cognitive skill and one that research has shown enhances life outcomes (see the Stanford Marshmallow Test ).

At my school, the goal is to reduce the barriers for each student to meet his or her peak potential without lowering the bar. Good, purposeful homework should be part of any student's learning journey. But it takes teachers to design better homework (which can include no homework at all on some nights), parents to not see hours of homework as a measure of school quality, and students to reflect on their current homework strategies while applying new, research-backed ones. Together, we can all get more sleep -- and that, research shows, is very good for all of our brains and for each student's learning.

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December 12, 2018

Teens, Sleep and Homework Survey Results

Better sleep council research finds that too much homework can actually hurt teens' performance in school.

Press Releases

ALEXANDRIA, Va. , Dec. 11, 2018 – According to new research from the Better Sleep Council (BSC) – the nonprofit consumer-education arm of the International Sleep Products Association – homework, rather than social pressure, is the number one cause of teenage stress, negatively affecting their sleep and ultimately impacting their academic performance.

American teenagers said they spend 15+ hours a week on homework, and about one-third (34%) of all teens spend 20 or more hours a week. This is more than time spent at work, school clubs, social activities and sports. When asked what causes stress in their lives, about three-quarters of teens said grades/test scores (75%) and/or homework (74%) cause stress, more than self-esteem (51%), parental expectations (45%) and even bullying (15%). In fact, according to the American Psychological Association’s Stress in America™ Survey, during the school year, teenagers say they experience stress levels higher than those reported by adults.

Further, more than half (57%) of all teenagers surveyed do not feel they get enough sleep. Seventy-nine percent reported getting 7 hours of sleep or less on a typical school night, more than two-thirds (67%) say they only get 5 to 7 hours of sleep on a school night, and only about one in five teens is getting 8 hours of sleep or more. Based on the BSC’s findings, the more stressed teenagers feel, the more likely they are to get less sleep, go to bed later and wake up earlier. They are also more likely to have trouble going to sleep and staying asleep – more often than their less-stressed peers.

“We’re finding that teenagers are experiencing this cycle where they sacrifice their sleep to spend extra time on homework, which gives them more stress – but they don’t get better grades,” said Mary Helen Rogers , vice president of marketing and communications for the Better Sleep Council. “The BSC understands the impact sleep has on teenagers’ overall development, so we can help them reduce this stress through improved sleep habits.”

The BSC recommends that teens between the ages of 13-18 get 8-10 hours of sleep per night. For teens to get the sleep their bodies need for optimal school performance, they should consider the following tips:

Establish a consistent bedtime routine . Just like they set time aside for homework, they should schedule at least 8 hours of sleep into their daily calendars. It may be challenging in the beginning, but it will help in the long run.
Keep it quiet in the bedroom. It’s easier to sleep when there isn’t extra noise. Teens may even want to wear earplugs if their home is too noisy.
Create a relaxing sleep environment. Make sure the bedroom is clutter-free, dark and conducive to great sleep. A cool bedroom, between 65 and 67 degrees , is ideal to help teens sleep.
Cut back on screen time. Try cutting off screen time at least an hour before bed. The blue light emitted from electronics’ screens disturbs sleep.
Examine their mattress. Since a mattress is an important component of a good night’s sleep, consider replacing it if it isn’t providing comfort and support, or hasn’t been changed in at least seven years.

Other takeaways on the relationship between homework, stress and sleep in teenagers include:

Teens who feel more stress (89%) are more likely than less-stressed teens (65%) to say homework causes them stress in their lives.
More than three-quarters (76%) of teens who feel more stress say they don’t feel they get enough sleep – which is significantly higher than teens who are not stressed, since only 42% of them feel they don’t get enough sleep.
Teens who feel more stress (51%) are more likely than less-stressed teens (35%) to get to bed at 11 p.m. or later. Among these teens who are going to bed later, about 33% of them said they are waking up at 6:00 a.m. or earlier.
Students who go to bed earlier and awaken earlier perform better academically than those who stay up late – even to do homework.

About the BSC The Better Sleep Council is the consumer-education arm of the International Sleep Products Association, the trade association for the mattress industry. With decades invested in improving sleep quality, the BSC educates consumers on the link between sleep and health, and the role of the sleep environment, primarily through www.bettersleep.org , partner support and consumer outreach.

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Better Sleep Council Research Finds That Too Much Homework Can Actually Hurt Teens’ Performance In School

Dec 19, 2018 | Age | 0 |

According to new research from the Better Sleep Council (BSC)—the nonprofit consumer-education arm of the International Sleep Products Association—homework, rather than social pressure, is the number-one cause of teenage stress, negatively affecting their sleep and ultimately impacting their academic performance.

Further, more than half (57%) of all teenagers surveyed do not feel they get enough sleep. Seventy-nine percent reported getting 7 hours of sleep or less on a typical school night, more than two-thirds (67%) say they only get 5 to 7 hours of sleep on a school night, and only about one in five teens is getting 8 hours of sleep or more. Based on the BSC’s findings, the more stressed teenagers feel, the more likely they are to get less sleep, go to bed later, and wake up earlier. They are also more likely to have trouble going to sleep and staying asleep—more often than their less-stressed peers.

“We’re finding that teenagers are experiencing this cycle where they sacrifice their sleep to spend extra time on homework, which gives them more stress—but they don’t get better grades,” says Mary Helen Rogers, vice president of marketing and communications for the Better Sleep Council, in a release. “The BSC understands the impact sleep has on teenagers’ overall development, so we can help them reduce this stress through improved sleep habits.”

Establish a consistent bedtime routine. Just like they set time aside for homework, they should schedule at least 8 hours of sleep into their daily calendars. It may be challenging in the beginning, but it will help in the long run.
Keep it quiet in the bedroom. It’s easier to sleep when there isn’t extra noise. Teens may even want to wear earplugs if their home is too noisy.
Create a relaxing sleep environment. Make sure the bedroom is clutter-free, dark and conducive to great sleep. A cool bedroom, between 65 and 67 degrees, is ideal to help teens sleep.
Cut back on screen time. Try cutting off screen time at least an hour before bed. The blue light emitted from electronics’ screens disturbs sleep.
Examine their mattress. Since a mattress is an important component of a good night’s sleep, consider replacing it if it isn’t providing comfort and support, or hasn’t been changed in at least seven years.

Other takeaways on the relationship between homework, stress and sleep in teenagers include:

Teens who feel more stress (89%) are more likely than less-stressed teens (65%) to say homework causes them stress in their lives.
More than three-quarters (76%) of teens who feel more stress say they don’t feel they get enough sleep—which is significantly higher than teens who are not stressed, since only 42% of them feel they don’t get enough sleep.
Teens who feel more stress (51%) are more likely than less-stressed teens (35%) to get to bed at 11 p.m. or later. Among these teens who are going to bed later, about 33% of them said they are waking up at 6 am or earlier.
Students who go to bed earlier and awaken earlier perform better academically than those who stay up late—even to do homework.

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August 1, 2019

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The Impact of Sleep on Learning and Memory

By Kelly Cappello, B.A.

For many students, staying awake all night to study is common practice. According to Medical News Today , around 20 percent of students pull all-nighters at least once a month, and about 35 percent stay up past three in the morning once or more weekly.

That being said, staying up all night to study is one of the worst things students can do for their grades. In October of 2019, two MIT professors found a correlation between sleep and test scores : The less students slept during the semester, the worse their scores.

So, why is it that sleep is so important for test scores? While the answer seems simple, that students simply perform better when they’re not mentally or physically tired, the truth may be far more complicated and interesting.

In the last 20 years, scientists have found that sleep impacts more than just students’ ability to perform well; it improves their ability to learn, memorize, retain, recall, and use their new knowledge to solve problems creatively. All of which contribute to better test scores.

Let’s take a look at some of the most interesting research regarding the impact of sleep on learning and memory.

How does sleep improve the ability to learn?

When learning facts and information, most of what we learn is temporarily stored in a region of the brain called the hippocampus. Some scientists hypothesize that , like most storage centers, the hippocampus has limited storage capacity. This means, if the hippocampus is full, and we try to learn more information, we won’t be able to.

Fortunately, many scientists also hypothesize that sleep, particularly Stages 2 and 3 sleep, plays a role in replenishing our ability to learn. In one study, a group of 44 participants underwent two rigorous sessions of learning, once at noon and again at 6:00 PM. Half of the group was allowed to nap between sessions, while the other half took part in standard activities. The researchers found that the group that napped between learning sessions learned just as easily at 6:00 PM as they did at noon. The group that didn’t nap, however, experienced a significant decrease in learning ability [1].

How does sleep improve the ability to recall information?

Humans have known about the benefits of sleep for memory recall for thousands of years. In fact, the first record of this revelation is from the first century AD. Rhetorician Quintilian stated, “It is a curious fact, of which the reason is not obvious, that the interval of a single night will greatly increase the strength of the memory.”

In the last century, scientists have tested this theory many times, often finding that sleep improves memory retention and recall by between 20 and 40 percent. Recent research has led scientists to hypothesize that Stage 3 (deep non-Rapid Eye Movement sleep, or Slow Wave Sleep) may be especially important for the improvement of memory retention and recall [2].

How does sleep improve long-term memory?

Scientists hypothesize that sleep also plays a major role in forming long-term memories. According to Matthew Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley, MRI scans indicate that the slow brain waves of stage 3 sleep (deep NREM sleep) “serve as a courier service,” transporting memories from the hippocampus to other more permanent storage sites [3].

How does sleep improve the ability to solve problems creatively?

Many tests are designed to assess critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. Recent research has led scientists to hypothesize that sleep, particularly REM sleep, plays a role in strengthening these skills. In one study, scientists tested the effect of REM sleep on the ability to solve anagram puzzles (word scrambles like “EOUSM” for “MOUSE”), an ability that requires strong creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

In the study, participants solved a couple of anagram puzzles before going to sleep in a sleep laboratory with electrodes placed on their heads. The subjects were woken up four times during the night to solve anagram puzzles, twice during NREM sleep and twice during REM sleep.

The researchers found that when participants were woken up during REM sleep, they could solve 15 to 35 percent more puzzles than they could when woken up from NREM sleep. They also performed 15 to 35 percent better than they did in the middle of the day [4]. It seems that REM sleep may play a major role in improving the ability to solve complex problems.

So, what’s the point?

Sleep research from the last 20 years indicates that sleep does more than simply give students the energy they need to study and perform well on tests. Sleep actually helps students learn, memorize, retain, recall, and use their new knowledge to come up with creative and innovative solutions.

It’s no surprise that the MIT study previously mentioned revealed no improvement in scores for those who only prioritized their sleep the night before a big test. In fact, the MIT researchers concluded that if students want to see an improvement in their test scores, they have to prioritize their sleep during the entire learning process. Staying up late to study just doesn’t pay off.

Interested in learning more about the impact of sleep on learning and memory? Check out this Student Sleep Guide .

Author Biography

Kelly Cappello graduated from East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2015. She is now a writer, specialized in researching complex topics and writing about them in simple English. She currently writes for Recharge.Energy , a company dedicated to helping the public improve their sleep and improve their lives.

Mander, Bryce A., et al. “Wake Deterioration and Sleep Restoration of Human Learning.” Current Biology, vol. 21, no. 5, 2011, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.01.019.
Walker M. P. (2009). The role of slow wave sleep in memory processing. Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 5(2 Suppl), S20–S26.
Walker, Matthew. Why We Sleep. Scribner, 2017.
Walker, Matthew P, et al. “Cognitive Flexibility across the Sleep–Wake Cycle: REM-Sleep Enhancement of Anagram Problem Solving.” Cognitive Brain Research, vol. 14, no. 3, 2002, pp. 317–324., doi:10.1016/s0926-6410(02)00134-9.

Posted on Dec 21, 2020 | Tagged: learning and memory

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Nat Sci Sleep

Causes and consequences of sleepiness among college students

Shelley d hershner.

Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Ronald D Chervin

Daytime sleepiness, sleep deprivation, and irregular sleep schedules are highly prevalent among college students, as 50% report daytime sleepiness and 70% attain insufficient sleep. The consequences of sleep deprivation and daytime sleepiness are especially problematic to college students and can result in lower grade point averages, increased risk of academic failure, compromised learning, impaired mood, and increased risk of motor vehicle accidents. This article reviews the current prevalence of sleepiness and sleep deprivation among college students, contributing factors for sleep deprivation, and the role of sleep in learning and memory. The impact of sleep and sleep disorders on academics, grade point average, driving, and mood will be examined. Most importantly, effective and viable interventions to decrease sleepiness and sleep deprivation through sleep education classes, online programs, encouragement of naps, and adjustment of class time will be reviewed. This paper highlights that addressing sleep issues, which are not often considered as a risk factor for depression and academic failure, should be encouraged. Promotion of university and college policies and class schedules that encourage healthy and adequate sleep could have a significant impact on the sleep, learning, and health of college students. Future research to investigate effective and feasible interventions, which disseminate both sleep knowledge and encouragement of healthy sleep habits to college students in a time and cost effective manner, is a priority.

Introduction

The college experience is of great value in providing emerging adults with a structured environment in which they can gain the knowledge, skills, and independence to chart their own path, become successfully employed, and contribute to society. However, this experience comes at great cost given rising tuition fees and ballooning student debt, and thus, it is vital that the college years be as efficacious as possible. A potential obstacle to maximizing success in college is the high prevalence of daytime sleepiness, sleep deprivation, and irregular sleep schedules among college students.

Daytime sleepiness is a major problem, exhibited by 50% of college students compared to 36% of adolescents and adults. 1 At least 3 days a week, 60% of students report that they are dragging, tired, or sleepy. 2 Sleepiness is defined as the inability or difficulty in maintaining alertness during the major wake period of the day, resulting in unintended lapses into drowsiness or sleep. 3 It is important to note that sleepiness is often circumstance-dependent, with many aspects of the students’ learning environment exacerbating sleepiness. 4 For example, a lecture that does not require active participation and may be in a dark, warm lecture hall can unmask underlying sleepiness. Sleep deprivation is defined as obtaining inadequate sleep to support adequate daytime alertness. 4 How much sleep a young adult needs is not clearly known, but is thought to be 8 hours. 5 , 6 Most college students are sleep deprived, as 70.6% of students report obtaining less than 8 hours of sleep. 7 The impact of educational major on sleepiness and sleep duration is not well studied, but the effect may be substantial. As reported at an Architecture School in the Midwest, only 4% of students obtained at least 7 hours of sleep at night; the average sleep duration was 5.7 hours, with 2.7 “all-nighters” per month. 8 Eighty-two percent of college students believe that inadequate sleep and sleepiness impact their school performance. 9 Students rank sleep problems second only to stress in factors that negatively impact academic performance. 10

Sleep deprivation and sleepiness are caused by a host of reasons and have numerous negative consequences. In the literature, sleep deprivation is often termed either acute sleep deprivation or chronic partial sleep deprivation. Colloquially for students, acute sleep deprivation is termed “pulling an all-nighter”, meaning that a person stays up for 24 hours or longer. More typically, sleep deprivation consists of chronic partial sleep deprivation, where a student obtains some, but not adequate sleep. Sleepiness can be an obvious consequence of sleep deprivation, but sleepiness can be caused by other circumstances, most commonly sleep disorders. To understand the consequences of sleepiness and sleep deprivation, knowledge of normal sleep and its impact on learning, memory, and performance are necessary. Equally important are potential interventions, as these may offer an opportunity to improve health and educational outcomes for this demographic. This article reviews the prevalence of sleepiness and sleep deprivation among college students, the impact of sleep on memory, contributing factors for sleep deprivation, potential consequences with a focus on those particularly applicable to college students, and available interventions to improve sleep among college students.

Regulation of normal sleep: the circadian rhythm and homeostatic sleep drive

Many college students are sleep deprived because they go to sleep late and wake up for classes or employment before adequate sleep is obtained. Two primary processes govern how much sleep is obtained, the homeostatic sleep drive and the circadian rhythm. The circadian system (internal clock) helps to regulate sleep/wake cycles and hormonal secretions while the homeostatic sleep drive increases the need for sleep as the period of wakefulness lengthens. The interaction of these two systems is described by the Two-Process Model of Sleep Regulation. 11

Physiologically, adolescents and young adults tend to have a delayed circadian preference, and are “night owls”. 12 This change occurs in association with puberty; more physically mature adolescents have a preference for later bedtimes and may have a lower homeostatic sleep drive, and consequently, are less sleepy at night. 13 – 15 The typical adult circadian period is 24.1 hours, compared to an adolescent’s circadian period of 24.27 hours; this longer period makes it easier for the bedtime to shift later. 15 , 16 A cardinal sign of a delayed circadian system is an irregular sleep schedule, where students have catch-up sleep on the weekend. Both high school and college students demonstrate a 1–3 hour sleep deficit on school nights, with a much longer sleep duration and often a later wake time on the weekends. 7 , 17 , 18

How the circadian rhythm and homeostatic sleep drive change with puberty is not well understood, but the cumulative effect is that adolescents and young adults feel more awake in the evening, have a difficult time falling asleep until later, and consequently, have insufficient sleep during the school week and catch-up on sleep on the weekend.

Exactly when this nocturnal preference or “night owl” tendency diminishes, remains unclear. When evaluated longitudinally, weekday bedtimes continued to delay until around 19 years of age, with weekend bedtimes remaining later until the early 20s, although other studies have shown this delay persisting until the junior year. 19 The transition from high school to college also has an impact; college students go to bed 75 minutes later than high school students. 7 In this study, freshman students’ bedtime was 12.22 am and 1.58 am with a rise time of 8.08 am and 10.26 am on weekdays and the weekend, respectively.

Learning, memory, and sleep cycles

Sleepiness and irregular sleep schedules have many unintended consequences, one of which is to negatively impact learning, memory, and performance. The precise details of the relationship between sleep and memory formation are not yet completely understood. The dual process theory maintains that certain types of memory are dependent on specific sleep states, such that procedural memory (knowing how) may be dependent on REM (rapid eye movement) sleep and declarative memory (knowing what) on NREM (non-REM) sleep. The sequential processing theory suggests that memories require an orderly succession of sleep stages, ie, memory formation may be prompted by slow-wave sleep and consolidated by REM sleep (see Figure 1 ). 20

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The interaction of sleep and memory.

Notes: The dual process theory suggests that certain types of memory are dependent on specific sleep states, such as REM sleep, or slow-wave sleep (a stage of NREM sleep). The sequential processing theory suggests that memories require an orderly succession of sleep stages, eg, slow-wave sleep followed by REM sleep. 20

Abbreviations: NREM, non-rapid eye movement; REM, rapid eye movement.

Both theories may help to explain how a student’s sleep pattern could impact learning. 21 In one study, REM sleep deprivation eliminated sleep-induced improvement on a visual perceptual learning (procedural) task; the same effect was not found with selective slow-wave sleep deprivation. 22 REM sleep normally occurs every 90–120 minutes, approximately 4–5 times in a typical night, with each REM sleep period growing progressively longer, with the last episode near rise time. 23 Therefore, college students with early morning classes may not attain the last 1–2 REM sleep periods, thus adversely affecting procedural memory. However, other studies suggest that NREM rather than REM sleep enhances procedural memories, while other studies correlated improvement with slow-wave sleep followed by REM sleep. 24 – 26 Both of these theories support that sleep deprivation may limit the amount of REM sleep and/or slow-wave sleep that students obtain, which may compromise both learning and memory, but further research is required to clarify this.

Many studies investigating the interaction of sleep, memory, and learning use scenarios of a specific memory task and then alter subjects’ sleep pattern or duration to determine the impact that sleep had on the subject’s performance. These scenarios often may not directly correlate with the memory and learning that college students are expected to perform or the alterations in their sleep schedule they experience. Despite these limitations, these studies illuminate the impact of sleep on students’ memory, learning, and potential academic performance.

Some students may “pull an all-nighter” (24 hours or more of sleep deprivation) before examinations in the hope of improved grades. The literature suggests that all-night study sessions are the wrong plan for improved grades and learning. Subjects were taught a visual discrimination task to identify the presence of “T” or “L” and the orientation of three diagonal bars on a screen. Subjects who were sleep deprived for 30 hours showed no improvement in performance, even after 2 days of post-recovery sleep. 26 Non-sleep-deprived subjects’ performance improved for the next 4 days. In another study investigating if improvement correlated with time or time spent in sleep, subjects were taught a motor task and then tested either after a 12-hour period of wakefulness or a 12-hour period that included sleep. 24 Subjects tested at 10 am and then retested at 10 pm without sleep showed no significant change in performance. After a night of sleep, subjects’ performance improved by 18%. Subjects tested at 10 pm initially, then retested after sleep, also had a significant improvement in performance. This supports the concept that sleep, and not just time, is required for learning and memory consolidation. It may be possible that there is a window for potential learning that requires sleep, and that this opportunity for learning may not be salvaged even after sleep is recovered.

Sleep before learning may also be necessary. To investigate this concept, subjects were tested on an episodic memory encoding task, which involved viewing a series of images with a recognition test 48 hours later. 27 Subjects were tested after 35 hours of sleep deprivation; memory performance was approximately two letter grades (19%; P =0.031) worse when compared to the non-sleep-deprived subjects. This difference did not seem to be due to alertness, as there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of response rate, which has been correlated with alertness.

Looking at more global functions, total sleep deprivation showed a significant decrease of performance in cognitive tasks assessing inference, recognition of assumptions, and deduction. 28 Although this study was not carried out on college-aged students, subjects aged 10–14 years of age restricted to 5 hours of sleep, had impaired performance on verbal creativity and abstract thinking. 29 Less complex cognitive functions did not appear impaired; this has been shown in other studies and may indicate that motivation, individual response to sleep deprivation, or certain tasks may be less impacted by sleep. 20 , 30

Learning may also affect the intrinsic aspects of sleep. Procedural tasks prior to sleep increased slow-wave activity in the right parietal lobe, an area that is responsible for visual-spatial skills. 31 This increased right parietal activity correlated with improvement in the task. Other studies have found an increase in spindles, a defining feature of stage 2 sleep, after procedural memory training. 32 In an intensive 6-week French language immersion course, improvement was correlated with an increase in subjects’ percentage of REM sleep. 33

In summary, these finding suggest that sleep, likely before and after specific memory tasks, plays an integral part in memory consolidation. Many of these studies isolate memory into specific areas such as visual, declarative, or procedural; however, college students’ learning, memory, and performance in classes rarely would have such a narrow memory domain. Further research with real-life circumstances of students would better help clarify these important issues.

Causes of sleep deprivation and sleepiness

Among college-aged students, one of the most common causes of daytime sleepiness is sleep deprivation, ie, students get inadequate sleep because they go to bed late and wake up early. This occurs for multiple reasons; some are physiologic and others behavioral. The behavioral components may be particularly problematic on college campuses. However, sleep deprivation is not the only cause of sleepiness as college students are not immune to sleep disorders, which may also cause sleepiness. This section will review common causes of sleep deprivation as well as the prevalence of sleep disorders among college students, and the influence of sleep disorders on sleepiness.

Inadequate sleep hygiene

Sleep deprivation can arise from poor sleep behaviors; sleep hygiene encourages habits conducive to restorative sleep and avoidance of substances or behaviors that are not. Good sleep hygiene includes a regular sleep–wake schedule, quiet sleep environment, and avoidance of caffeine after lunch and stimulating activities before bed. 34 , 35 Substances are not the only aspect of inadequate sleep hygiene, as the ubiquitous use of technology before bed may also adversely affect sleep. Many students have inadequate sleep hygiene that, in conjunction with their delayed circadian rhythm, encourages sleep deprivation.

Approximately four out of five college students drink alcohol, with nearly 40% of men and women reporting “binge drinking” at least 4–5 drinks in a row within the last 14 days. 36 , 37 Alcohol shortens sleep latency, but then promotes fragmented sleep in the latter half of the night. 23 One study found that 11.6% of students who drank used alcohol as a sleep aid. 7 , 38 Alcohol may also increase the risk for obstructive sleep apnea. 39

Caffeine and energy drinks

Caffeine, equivalent to 2–4 cups of coffee taken at night, can increase sleep latency on average from 6.3 to 12.1 minutes, reduce sleepiness, and improve the ability to sustain wakefulness. 40 In this study, the effects of caffeine lasted 5.5–7.5 hours, suggesting that caffeine consumed even in the afternoon could impair the ability to fall asleep. Caffeine is an adenosine receptor antagonist and can increase arousal. Caffeine also may act on gamma-aminobutyric acid neurons of the posterior hypothalamus to suppress sleep-promoting pathways. 23 The net effect is that caffeine increases vigilance, alertness, and decreases sleepiness.

Energy drinks are becoming increasingly popular and 34% of 18–24-year-olds consume them regularly. In 2006, Americans spent more than $3.2 billion on energy drinks. 41 The majority (67%) of users consumed energy drinks to help compensate for insufficient sleep. 42 The contents of energy drinks are variable and depend on the individual product, but usually contain caffeine, herbal products, and sometimes vitamins and other supplements. Caffeine is the primary constituent responsible for the effect of increased energy. The amount of caffeine varies widely from 45–500 mg. Use of energy drinks is associated with higher use of alcohol and possibly other drugs, including stimulants. 43

Use of either prescribed or nonprescribed stimulants is a growing problem in young adults. The most commonly reported reason is to “stay awake to study” or increase concentration. 44 Students may utilize these drugs more than age-matched non-students. 45 A survey at 119 colleges and universities across the US found a 6.9% lifetime prevalence for the use of stimulants. 46 Other studies show prevalence as high as 14%. 44 , 47 Men are more likely than women to use stimulants, as well as caffeine and energy drinks. Nonprescribed use of stimulants is associated with increased use of alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana. 46 Not all stimulant use is illicit, as between 2%–8% of college students’ self-reported symptoms are consistent with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 48 However, when parents of college students were asked to report such symptoms in their children, the prevalence of ADHD decreased to around 1%. Stimulants increase sleep latency and suppress REM sleep; subjects who use stimulant medications report worse sleep quality. 23 , 47

Inadequate sleep hygiene also encompasses the use of technology prior to bed. Relevant data often must be extrapolated from literature on adolescents, as few studies have focused on college students. The 2011 Sleep in America Poll addressed technology available in the bedroom. “Generation Y’ers” (adults aged 19–29 years old) are heavy users of technology prior to bed: 67% use cell phones, 43% music devices, 60% computers, and 18% video games. The majority (51%) report rarely getting a good night’s sleep and often wake unrefreshed. Computer use in the hour before bed is associated with less restful sleep, higher Epworth Sleepiness Scales, and drowsy driving. 49 Frequent use of cell phones around bedtime is associated with difficulties falling asleep, repeated awakenings, or waking up too early. 50 Most young adults (57%) leave their phone on during sleep, with only 33% turning it to silent or vibrate modes ( Table 1 ). Playing video games before bed can increase sleep latency, an average of 21.6 minutes. 51 Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows that video game playing heightens cognitive alertness, especially during violent scenes ( Table 1 ). 52

Frequent use of technology before bed is associated with sleep difficulties and daytime sleepiness

Note: Data from National Sleep Foundation; 49 Dworak et al. 51

Light exposure from various sources, including computers, tablet computers (eg, iPads; Apple Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA), and cell phones may also impact sleep. Melatonin, secreted by the pineal gland, helps regulate the circadian rhythm to the environment. 15 Normally, it is low or absent during the day and starts to rise about 2 hours before the habitual bedtime. Melatonin is suppressed by light, and light sources as low 200–300 lux (room lights) can cause suppression. 53 The amount of light from technologic devices is variable; for example, a tablet computer generated 50 lux suppressed melatonin in a cohort of college students after 2 hours of use. 54 A case report describes a student in Brazil who had a 40-minute delay in sleep on the weekends when electric lights were installed. 55 Bright light (8,000 lux) given at 7 pm or at 9 pm reduced nighttime sleepiness in students who had an evening preference and those with a later onset of melatonin. 56 One of the effects of technology may be to suppress melatonin, resulting in a delay in sleep onset.

In summary, many students engage in behaviors, such as those described above, which increase stimulation and alertness prior to bed. This, in conjunction with their delayed circadian rhythm, encourages late bedtimes and insufficient sleep. To combat sleepiness, students often drink caffeine and energy drinks, compromising sleep and ensuring a vicious cycle of sleep deprivation ( Table 2 ).

Challenges to good sleep hygiene in college students

Note: Data from. 41 , 43 , 47 , 49 , 54

Sleep disorders

Sleep deprivation is not the only cause of sleepiness on campus, as sleep disorders may also play a role. A survey of 1,845 students in introductory psychology labs suggested that 27% were at risk for at least one sleep disorder or sleep-related problem, including obstructive sleep apnea (4%), insomnia (12%), restless legs disorder and periodic limb movement disorder (8%), circadian rhythm sleep disorders (7%), and hypersomnia (4%). 57

Obstructive sleep apnea can be associated with significant sleepiness. 58 The prevalence of snoring may be more common than expected, as 30% of non-overweight students in a California school reported snoring. Men more commonly reported snoring (42%) than women (25%). 59 Asian students (37%) more often reported snoring than African-American (24%) or Caucasian (27%) students. Although such observations of snoring frequency do not reveal the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea among college students, they do suggest that this disorder may not be as infrequent among young, otherwise healthy college students as is sometimes assumed.

Consequences of sleep deprivation and sleepiness

College is a time of intellectual growth and development as young adults’ transition from adolescence to adulthood. Although the worth of college in terms of increased productivity and higher earning potential is rarely debated, there is a significant personal and societal cost of college both in terms of time and money. For optimal return on the investment of time, effort, and money, students need to maximize their learning, academic, and personal growth. Sleepiness from any cause can compromise these goals, through impact on learning, memory, grades, perception of effort, driving performance, and mood. Although sleep deprivation has effects on many aspects of health, this article will focus on areas that may be particularly problematic for college students.

Grade point average (GPA) and academic performance

Despite growing evidence of the relationships between sleep, learning, and memory, a direct connection between learning and GPA has not yet been established. 60 A student’s GPA is not just an indication of learning, but instead involves a complex interaction between the student and their environment. 61 Intelligence, motivation, work ethic, personality, socioeconomic status, health problems, current and past school systems, course load, academic program, and test-taking abilities all may influence GPA.

Existing evidence does suggest an association between sleep and GPA. Students who obtained more sleep (long sleepers, ≥9 hours) had higher GPAs than short sleepers (≤6 hours): GPAs were 3.24 vs 2.74 on average, respectively. 62 More evidence exists to support an influence of sleep patterns rather than sleep duration on GPA. Students at a community college near Washington DC showed no difference in total sleep time (TST), sleepiness, or morning preference between high (GPA >3.5) and low (GPA <2.7) academic performers. 63 High academic performers instead showed earlier bed and rise times, though with similar overall TST. No difference was present between the two groups with regards to a morning preference, but a validated questionnaire was not used.

Among first-year university students, sleep patterns also influenced GPA; each hour delay in weekday or weekend rise time decreased the GPA by 0.132/4.0 and 0.115/4.0, respectively. 60 Bedtimes were also influential, with later bedtimes associated with lower GPAs. TST or circadian factors were not evaluated. These results do not explain why an earlier rise time was associated with better grades; it could arise from the sleep schedule itself, but many potential confounders exist. For example, early risers may also be more motivated or organized. Another possibility is that negative influences arise when students who have a nocturnal preference are unable to wake up earlier. In a study of medical students, subjects with an evening preference on the Horne–Ostberg Questionnaire had a more irregular sleep pattern than students with a morning or indifferent-type preference. Sleep duration was not different between the groups, but subjects with a more irregular sleep pattern had lower academic performance. 64 This suggests that sleep patterns influence academic performance more than sleep duration, with the caveat that students who have an evening preference may have a more irregular sleep schedule.

Extreme forms of irregular sleep schedules include all-night study sessions. No literature appears to address the association between all-nighter study sessions and GPA, but the absence of sleep is known to affect learning and performance improvement. Subjects taught a visual discrimination task who were then sleep deprived for 30 hours showed no improvement in the task, even after 2 days of post-recovery sleep. 26 Non-sleep-deprived subjects’ performance improved for the next 4 days. Similar results were demonstrated with a finger-tapping motor task; without sleep, no significant improvement occurred. 24 All-nighter study sessions may also alter motivation and perceived effort. Students’ self-perceived effort and performance were evaluated following two sleep scenarios: 24 hours of sleep deprivation or 8 hours of sleep. 28 Despite performing worse, sleep-deprived subjects felt they had better concentration, effort, and performance than did non-sleep-deprived subjects. Why sleep-deprived subjects rated their effort as higher is not known, and could be due to sleep deprivation itself, or relate to other unknown factors. This perception of improved performance following sleep deprivation may in part explain why it can be challenging to get students to change their sleep behavior. If students perceive no impairment in performance due to lack of sleep, they have little motivation to change.

Sleep disorders and academic performance

Students with sleep disorders probably do not achieve optimal academic performance, and up to 27% of students may be at risk for at least one sleep disorder. 57 Students at risk for academic failure (GPA <2.0) were at a disproportionately high risk for sleep disorders. Among those who screened positive for obstructive sleep apnea, 30% were at risk for academic failure. Medical students classified as frequent snorers more frequently failed their Internal Medicine examination (47%) than did occasional snorers (22.2%) or non-snorers (12.8%). After adjustment for age, BMI, and sex, the relative risk for snorers to fail the examination was 1.26 (95% confidence interval: 1.01–1.57). 65 Obstructive sleep apnea is suspected to have cognitive effects in both children and adults. 66 A higher percentage of students at risk for academic failure screened positive for other sleep disorders including: periodic limb movement disorder/restless legs syndrome (21%), 67 insomnia (22%), circadian rhythm sleep disorders (26%), and hypersomnia (21%). 57 As nearly one in four students is at risk for a sleep disorder, screening for sleep disorders among students with poor academic performance may well be advisable.

Although many students have a nocturnal preference, this preference can progress to delayed sleep-phase disorder (DSPD), a circadian rhythm disorder characterized by sleep-onset insomnia and difficulty waking at the desired time. 3 Consequences of DSPD may include missed morning classes, increased sleepiness, and decreased concentration, especially in morning classes. Students with DSPD have lower grades. 68 The prevalence of DSPD in the US college population may be as high as 6.7%–17%. 68 , 69

One of the most concerning consequences of sleep deprivation and sleepiness is drowsy driving. In the 2011 Sleep in America Poll, 66% of young adults reported drowsy driving. 49 However, few studies have evaluated drowsy driving specifically in college students. Among 1,039 undergraduate students, 16% reported falling asleep while driving and 2% had had a motor vehicle accident due to sleepiness. Men were more likely to fall asleep while driving than women. 38 A school in Utah had 86 student deaths due to motor vehicle accidents over a 15-year period; dozing/sleepiness was thought to be causative in 44%–72% of the cases. In a retrospective review of students’ “closest calls” for a motor vehicle accident due to sleepiness, most near accidents occurred between 11 pm and 1 am and often (39%) during the first hour of driving. Nearly half (48%) of students had a less intense dozing episode earlier in the same drive, with 68% of students continuing their drive despite feeling sleepy. 70 The findings overall suggest that drowsy driving accidents or near accidents are too frequent and that students may minimize the warning signs of drowsiness.

Driving, sleep deprivation, and alcohol

The impact of sustained wakefulness on driving performance has been compared to the impairment of performance that is produced by specific blood alcohol levels. In adults, sustained wakefulness of 17 hours was equivalent to a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05%, and 24 hours was equivalent to 0.1%, above the legal level for intoxication in the US and most countries worldwide. 71 , 72 Similar findings were found in males aged 19–35 years of age, in whom 18.5 and 21 hours of wakefulness produced changes in driving performance mimicking a 0.08% BAC. 73 Sleep deprivation in combination with alcohol has a synergistic detrimental effect on driving performance. To evaluate these effects, young male college students were sleep restricted to 4 hours in bed; they then consumed alcohol until they attained BACs of 0.025 g/dL or 0.035 g/dL, equivalent to about 1–2 drinks. 74 A simulated driving task at 2 pm monitored crashes, speed variability, and lane deviations. Crashes occurred in 23% and 33% of the subjects (BAC 0.025 g/dL and 0.035 g/dL, respectively), compared to only 4.7% in the controls and 19% in sleep-restricted subjects who had no alcohol.

Driving after drinking is commonplace during college, as up to 34% of students reported driving after drinking within the last 30 days. 75 The combination of sleep deprivation and drinking may be especially common at the end of the semester, when sleep-deprived students celebrate the end of exams with drinks before driving home for the holiday break. The dangerous combination of sleep loss and alcohol could impair driving performance even in students who are not legally intoxicated.

Mood effects

Depression and sleep are interrelated. A cardinal feature of depression is disturbed sleep. 76 , 77 Depression is common during the college years: 14.8% of students report a diagnosis of depression and an estimated 11% have suicidal ideation. 78 Insufficient sleep can increase depressive symptoms. In a study of female college students, sleep debt of 2 hours per night and/or a bedtime after 2 am was associated with greater depressive symptoms. 79 Irregular sleep schedules have been associated with greater depressive symptoms. Prolonged sleep latency was associated with loss of pleasure, punishment feelings, and self-dislike. 80 Differences between sex were apparent, as women went to bed earlier, slept longer, had more nocturnal awakenings, and reported more depressive symptoms. However, when the sleep variable was removed by deleting the question, “Have you experienced changes in sleep?”, no significant difference in sex persisted, suggesting the greater incidence of depression in college-aged women may be due in part to the greater number of reported sleep difficulties. 80 , 81

Improving sleep may improve depressive symptoms. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) administered via email to college students with poor sleep quality produced greater improvement in depressive symptoms than did an intervention focused on mood and stress reduction. 67 A study on college students without reported sleepiness or depression found that sleep extension significantly improved scores on the Profile of Mood States. 82 Increased total sleep in teenagers has also been shown to improve mood. When school start time was delayed by 30 minutes, fewer students rated themselves as “at least somewhat unhappy or depressed”. 83 As sleep may be a modifiable risk factor for depression, further research is needed on ways to improve sleep and sleep quality in depressed subjects.

Complex relationships exist between suicide, mood disorders, and sleep. Insomnia may be a risk factor for suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and death by suicide. 84 Conflicting results have been reported on whether both insomnia and nightmares increase the risk of suicidal ideation. 85 , 86 A confounder is that post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may account for these associations. A study among college students found that insomnia and nightmares were independently associated with suicidal ideation. However, after depression, anxiety, and PTSD were taken into account, nightmares, but not insomnia, retained an association with suicidal ideation. The presence of nightmares in a student with depression may be a warning sign of increased risk for suicidal ideation that warrants further evaluation. 87

Potential interventions

While sleep deprivation, irregular sleep schedules and sleepiness are highly prevalent among college students, little information is available on effective ways for schools to successfully disseminate information on the importance of sleep and to potentially improve the sleep of their students. In general, the few programs that have been tried are expensive, time consuming, and available for only a limited number of students. A recent review of sleep education programs for children and adolescents found only twelve studies, of which four were available only as abstracts. 81

Educational programs

Improved sleep hygiene, which is widely believed to be beneficial, has been the focus of most educational programs on sleep, although there is little published support. An American Academy of Sleep Medicine Practice Parameter concluded in 1999 that insufficient evidence exists to recommend sleep hygiene as a single therapy or in combination with other treatments. 88 A study evaluating sleep hygiene awareness and sleep hygiene practice found only a weak association between knowledge and practice. However, good sleep hygiene practice was strongly correlated with good sleep quality. 35 Adequate sleep knowledge does not necessarily translate into practice. Many sleep hygiene recommendations, such as a quiet environment and use of the bedroom only for sleep, may be challenging in college dormitories.

One educational campaign with a focus on sleep hygiene included a “Go to Bed” poster, a 2-page “Snooze letter”, and sleep educational information in the school newspaper. An earlier bedtime, shorter sleep latency, longer sleep duration, and improved sleep quality, as measured by the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, was noted in 9% of students. 89 Although this intervention did not affect a large percentage of the student population, it was relatively inexpensive and did produce a measurable benefit ( Table 3 ).

Components in sleep educational programs

Note: Data from. 67 , 89 – 91 , 93

Sleep courses

In another study, a two-credit, 18-week course included group discussion, lectures, and self-evaluation. Topics included circadian rhythms, sleep hygiene, muscle relaxation, and public sleep education. 90 Participants had improved sleep quality over the semester and women reported decreased nap time. However, despite this intensive intervention, only a limited effect on sleep patterns was observed.

The Sleep Treatment and Education Program (STEPS) consisted of a 30-minute oral presentation and handouts on various aspects of sleep, provided to students attending introductory psychology classes. 91 Six weeks later, participants showed improved sleep quality and sleep hygiene. These results may be more robust than suggested, as sleep quality and sleep behaviors typically worsen as the semester progresses; therefore, this intervention not only halted this deterioration, but resulted in improvement. 92 Four supplementary sleep-learning modules, offered as extra credit, improved sleep knowledge and encouraged some sleep-related behavior changes, as 55% reported a change in their sleep hygiene as compared to 45% of control students ( P <0.01). 93 Students in the intervention reported specific behavior changes such as having a more “consistent wake time” versus a more general “trying to get more sleep” as indicated by the control students. However, all of these interventions are time consuming, involve only a select number of students, and may not be practicable on a large university scale.

Electronic cognitive behavioral therapy

More feasible options are under development. A modified form of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) was emailed to students over an 8-week period. 67 Each weekly email contained an attachment to address several aspects of sleep, such as stabilizing the circadian rhythm by anchoring wake time, relaxation techniques, and a protocol for self-administered sleep restriction. This was compared to an alternative program (Breathe), which was created to reduce depressive symptoms and improve coping skills for stress. Participants in the sleep program (Refresh) had improvement in sleep quality and a decrease in depressive symptoms. Although the study involved only a small number (19 and 15, respectively), results showed promise as an effective electronic program that could be widely accessible and economically feasible for colleges and universities.

Class scheduling

The amount of sleep that students obtain is often dictated by the first obligation of the day, typically their first class. This is one reason why students often sleep longer and later on a vacation or summer schedule. 15 Therefore, class start times are an opportunity for intervention, but available information must be extrapolated from adolescent literature. A study at an independent college preparatory school showed increased sleep duration after a delay in school start time. The majority of students were boarders (81.5%) with structured lights-out schedules ranging from 10.30–11.30 pm. 83 When school was started at 8.30 am, 30 minutes later than usual, sleep duration was increased by 45 minutes on school days. An unexpected effect was that bedtime shifted earlier by 15 minutes. Following the time change, fewer students reported daytime sleepiness (49.1% to 20.0%), sleepiness in class (85.1% to 60.5%), and falling asleep in class (38% to 18%). A positive effect on mood was found, with a decrease in the Depressed Mood Scale. 83 Students continued to have significant “oversleeping” on the weekend, by nearly 3 hours. A study of eighth graders (mean age 13.7 years) who had 1 hour of sleep extension for 5 days through delays in the school start time, documented improved attention and performance. 94 This growing evidence from adolescents suggests that later school start times do increase total sleep duration, attention, and performance, but the data needs to be replicated in college students ( Table 4 ).

Potential interventions to reduce sleep deprivation and sleepiness

Although not often considered as an intervention for sleep deprivation, daytime naps may offer a potential remedy that may also help academic performance. Interestingly, in light of how napping may improve certain memory tasks, high academic performers were more likely to nap than low academic performers (52% vs 29%, respectively). 63 In a study of non-sleep-deprived subjects, deterioration in the performance of a visual perception task occurred during the day. 95 Intervening naps of 60 or 90 minutes halted this deterioration, but only naps with both REM and slow-wave sleep resulted in improvement compared to baseline. Sustained wakefulness can impair performance. In an episodic memory-encoding task (face and name recognition), significant deterioration at 6 pm occurred in all subjects, except those who had had a 100-minute nap. In the nap group, not only was performance deterioration abated, but improvement was noted. 27 Following training to recognize phonetically similar words, subjects showed an increase in accuracy, but 12 hours of sustained wakefulness reduced improvements by half. A nap prevented this decrement in performance. 96 , 97 In short, naps may enhance certain cognitive and performance tasks, but further research is still needed in this important area.

The college years are a time of critical transition from adolescence to adulthood. For many individuals, this transition is associated with inadequate sleep and daytime sleepiness. Many factors contribute to this, including the students’ own circadian physiology. Class times are often scheduled without consideration of young adults’ circadian patterns. Inadequate sleep hygiene is common, as students often use technology and substances that compromise sleep quality and quantity. This chronic sleep deprivation may impair academic performance, mood regulation, and driving safety. Students who attain sufficient sleep may still struggle with sleepiness due to sleep disorders.

Further research is needed to not only determine how to best educate students about the importance of sleep and the consequences of sleep deprivation, but also how to translate this knowledge into practice. Electronic or web-based interventions may be economically feasible and attractive to an electronically savvy demographic. Universities and colleges need to understand, acknowledge, and publicize that policies and class schedules may have substantial impacts on the sleep, learning, and health of their students. Investigation of new approaches to promote good sleep and sleep habits could have significant public health impact and should be prioritized.

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

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The Effects Homework Can Have On Teens’ Sleeping Habits

The+Effects+Homework+Can+Have+On+Teens%E2%80%99+Sleeping+Habits

Jess Amabile '24 and February 25, 2021

Ever wonder why you feel like you never get enough sleep? Here’s a pretty good reason: large amounts of homework can be detrimental to a teen’s sleeping habits, even more so with high schoolers.

There have been many studies recently about the damage homework has to students’ health, mainly concerning lack of sleep in teenagers. According to an article published by US News called “The Importance of Sleep for Teen Mental Health” , it states that “ surveys show that less than 9 percent of teens get enough sleep”. This fact is devastating, especially considering the fact that teenagers take up about thirteen percent of the country’s population.

Also mentioned in “The Importance of Sleep for Teen Mental Health” , “ about forty-one million Americans get six or fewer hours of sleep per night”. If teenagers see their parents not getting enough sleep, it can convince them that there are things more important than sleep, such as something almost every teenager in America has to deal with–homework.

Homework is pretty stressful for teens, especially if they have other things to do. Many teens have long hours at school, which limits the time for them to do their insane amount of homework, attend extra-curricular activities, eat, do whatever they need to around the house, and sleep. And usually, sleeping is the last thing on the list of things to do before school the next day. Another article, “What’s preventing adequate teen sleep” , states that, “Homework is possibly the biggest factor that keeps teens from getting enough sleep…The sheer quantity of homework absorbs hours that should be dedicated to sleep”. Students generally have so much homework that they don’t have enough time to do everything else they need to do that day. So, sleeping is often the first thing teens eliminate from their schedule.

According to Oxford Learning , homework can have other negative effects on students. In their article, Oxford Learning remarks, “56 percent of students considered homework a primary source of stress. Too much homework can result in lack of sleep, headaches, exhaustion, and weight loss”.

Similarly, Stanford Medicine News Center reports that the founder of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic stated, “‘I think high school is the real danger spot in terms of sleep deprivation,’ said William Dement, MD, Ph.D.”. Sleep deprivation is a real problem for high school students, and Stanford Medicine News Center continues on this topic by commenting, “Sleep deprivation increases the likelihood teens will suffer myriad negative consequences, including an inability to concentrate, poor grades, drowsy-driving incidents, anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide and even suicide attempts. It’s a problem that knows no economic boundaries”. If students are constantly battling sleep deprivation, how can they concentrate on schoolwork, or even be able to perform everyday tasks? This shows that homework greatly affects students in both mental and physical ways. If something is supposed to continue a lesson that was learned in school, why is it negatively affecting students’ lives?

Ask yourself: is homework really worth the extremely negative effects?

“What’s preventing adequate teen sleep”

http://sleepeducation.org/news/2017/07/26/what-is-preventing-adequate-teen-sleep

“The Importance of Sleep for Teen Mental Health”

https://health.usnews.com/health-care/for-better/articles/2018-07-02/the-importance-of-sleep-for-teen-mental-health

Oxford Learning

https://www.oxfordlearning.com/how-does-homework-affect-students/#:~:text=How%20Does%20Homework%20Affect%20Students,headaches%2C%20exhaustion%20and%20weight%20loss.

Stanford Medicine News Center

https://med.stanford.edu/news.html

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A Stanford education researcher found that too much homework can negatively affect kids, especially their lives away from school, where family, friends and activities matter. "Our findings on the effects of homework challenge the traditional assumption that homework is inherently good," wrote Denise Pope , a senior lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a co-author of a study published in the Journal of Experimental Education . The researchers used survey data to examine perceptions about homework, student well-being and behavioral engagement in a sample of 4,317 students from 10 high-performing high schools in upper-middle-class California communities. Along with the survey data, Pope and her colleagues used open-ended answers to explore the students' views on homework. Median household income exceeded $90,000 in these communities, and 93 percent of the students went on to college, either two-year or four-year. Students in these schools average about 3.1 hours of homework each night. "The findings address how current homework practices in privileged, high-performing schools sustain students' advantage in competitive climates yet hinder learning, full engagement and well-being," Pope wrote. Pope and her colleagues found that too much homework can diminish its effectiveness and even be counterproductive. They cite prior research indicating that homework benefits plateau at about two hours per night, and that 90 minutes to two and a half hours is optimal for high school. Their study found that too much homework is associated with: • Greater stress : 56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor. • Reductions in health : In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The researchers asked students whether they experienced health issues such as headaches, exhaustion, sleep deprivation, weight loss and stomach problems. • Less time for friends, family and extracurricular pursuits : Both the survey data and student responses indicate that spending too much time on homework meant that students were "not meeting their developmental needs or cultivating other critical life skills," according to the researchers. Students were more likely to drop activities, not see friends or family, and not pursue hobbies they enjoy. A balancing act The results offer empirical evidence that many students struggle to find balance between homework, extracurricular activities and social time, the researchers said. Many students felt forced or obligated to choose homework over developing other talents or skills. Also, there was no relationship between the time spent on homework and how much the student enjoyed it. The research quoted students as saying they often do homework they see as "pointless" or "mindless" in order to keep their grades up. "This kind of busy work, by its very nature, discourages learning and instead promotes doing homework simply to get points," said Pope, who is also a co-founder of Challenge Success , a nonprofit organization affiliated with the GSE that conducts research and works with schools and parents to improve students' educational experiences.. Pope said the research calls into question the value of assigning large amounts of homework in high-performing schools. Homework should not be simply assigned as a routine practice, she said. "Rather, any homework assigned should have a purpose and benefit, and it should be designed to cultivate learning and development," wrote Pope. High-performing paradox In places where students attend high-performing schools, too much homework can reduce their time to foster skills in the area of personal responsibility, the researchers concluded. "Young people are spending more time alone," they wrote, "which means less time for family and fewer opportunities to engage in their communities." Student perspectives The researchers say that while their open-ended or "self-reporting" methodology to gauge student concerns about homework may have limitations – some might regard it as an opportunity for "typical adolescent complaining" – it was important to learn firsthand what the students believe. The paper was co-authored by Mollie Galloway from Lewis and Clark College and Jerusha Conner from Villanova University.

Clifton B. Parker is a writer at the Stanford News Service .

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Put this information right at your fingertips with my book, It’s Never Too Late To Sleep Train

Craig Canapari, MD

Proven advice for better sleep in kids and parents

Too Much Homework, Too Little Sleep: Structural Sleep Deprivation in Teens

posted on October 11, 2012

NOTE: The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended school start times no earlier than 8:30 for teens. Read more here.

A few years ago, I had a sixteen year old come into sleep clinic for insomnia. He was a hard-working student in a good school district. I asked him to describe his sleep problems to me. “I finish my homework at midnight every night,” he said, “and I can’t fall asleep by 12:10 AM.” Each of his Advanced Placement classes had 1-2 hours of assigned homework per night and he was not routinely finishing homework until 11 PM or 12 AM. This may be an exaggerated case [and note that the details have been changed a bit to protect patient privacy.] However, let’s do the math. The typical school day for a high school student in this country is between 6.5-7 hours per day. Most school districts start between 7-8 AM for high school students. Thus, kids are getting out of school between 2-3 PM. Many students do extracurriculars for a few hours after school and cannot start homework until after dinner (say 6:30 PM). The maximum recommended homework for a high school senior is three hours per night ; for younger children, it is ten minutes per grade. If the student goes to sleep at 10 PM and gets up at 6 AM ( a typical wake time around here for high school students), this allows 8 hours of sleep. However, the typical teenager requires between 8.5-9 hours of sleep per night, so even a teen with good sleep habits generally sleep deprived. In Boston, this problem is frequently exaggerated by school choice where some children are assigned to better schools which are a long bus ride away. (These issues exist elsewhere. My friend Trapper Markelz grew up in Alaska and regularly took 45 minute bus trips twice a day to school.)

In their recent article, “ To Study or to Sleep? The Academic Costs of Extra Studying at the Expense of Sleep “, Cari Gillen-O’Neel and colleagues studied the effects of staying up late on students. They studied 535 kids through high school. The average sleep time for these teens diminished from 7.6 to 6.9 hours of sleep from 9th to 12th grade. When they examined what happened when teens stayed up late to study for finish a project, they found that

Results suggest that regardless of how much a student generally studies each day, if that student sacrifices sleep time to study more than usual, he or she will have more trouble understanding material taught in class and be more likely to struggle on an assignment or test the following day.

Essentially, staying up late to cram tends not to help and actually worsens performance. This emphasizes the importance of encouraging good study habits in kids .

Excessive homework is not the only factor squeezing teenager’s sleep. My friend Lauren Daisley had a great video on CBS Sunday Morning several weeks ago discussing early school start times. Sleepiness in teenagers is a major public health issue and early school start times contribute to this. To highlight some recent research:

Short sleep makes children obese .
A recent study showed that teenagers who did not get enough sleep were more likely to develop insulin resistance , which is the precursor to type 2 diabetes.
Sleepiness is a significant cause of automobile accidents which is the most common cause of death in teenagers.
Depression, anxiety, and irritability are all associated with insufficient sleep.

There is a significant body of research showing the benefits of moving school start times later. Demonstrated benefits have included less tardiness and absenteeism, lower levels of depression, and, most significantly, lower levels of car accidents in teenagers . (There are several great summaries here from the National Sleep Foundation , the New York Times , the Wall Street Journal , and Psychology Today .)

I also think that there are more abstract benefits to avoiding overscheduling for children and teens. In William Deresiewicz’s 2009 essay, “ Solitude and Leadership ,” he writes about his experience as an admission officer at Yale (full disclosure: my alma mater.) He writes,

Well, it turned out that a student who had six or seven extracurriculars was already in trouble. Because the students who got in—in addition to perfect grades and top scores—usually had 10 or 12. So what I saw around me were great kids who had been trained to be world-class hoop jumpers. Any goal you set them, they could achieve. Any test you gave them, they could pass with flying colors. They were, as one of them put it herself, “excellent sheep.”

He argues, however, that for real leadership and problem solvers, you need people who can think and innovate. And that solitude and time for reflection is critical for developing this faculty. Allowing teens extra time may not even hurt their college admission chances. I really enjoy the blog Study Hacks by Cal Newport, a computer science professor who been writing since he was a grad student. He wrote a great article (and a book as well) on how working against the conventional wisdom (e.g. doing a few extracurriculars instead of 10-12) can be a winning strategy for a motivated high school student. I highly recommend reading this: Want to Get into Harvard? Spend More Time Staring at the Clouds: Rethinking the Role of Extracurricular Activities in College Admissions.

Obviously, teenagers are not blameless. Screen time and social media shares some of the blame. But I am most concerned about these structural issues which do not allow enough of a sleep opportunity for kids. These issues are determined at the level of the school district. However, there are some actions that parents can take:

The US is a relatively homework intense country compared to other industrialized countries with higher standardized test scores. Whether your child is in third grade or twelfth, keep an eye on the amount of homework they are receiving. The rule of thumb is ten minutes/grade level. Have a frank discussion with your child’s teachers or principal if it seems excessive. Be aware that excessive homework times can also reflect difficulties like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or learning disabilities.
School start times are typically addressed at the town or district level. As you can imagine, this is a difficult issue to move at the national or state level. If you are concerned by the school start times in your district, go to school board meetings. Also, get involved with Start School Later , an organization dedicating to addressing this issue.
Make sure that your child has an age appropriate bedtime allowing for enough sleep (10-11 hours in elementary school, 9-10 hours middle school, 9 hours high school). Limit screen time in the evenings before bedtime.
Prolonged napping can result in s ignificant difficulty at bedtime.
Keeping screens out of the bedroom except when absolutely necessary can help avoid sleep problems in kids and teens.
Going on a “light diet” to limit night time light exposure is important for limiting the impact of late night homework sessions on overall sleep patterns.

It is also important to understand the biology of when you fall asleep. This is comprised of a two part system: a) the homeostatic sleep drive (the longer you are awake, the quicker you fall asleep) and b) the circadian or body clock system which helps keep you awake in the evenings.

For more on the topic of homework vs sleep, here is an article I just wrote on the controversy about the value of homework .

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Why are teenagers so sleep-deprived.

A perfect storm of biology, technology, and homework

Writer: Juliann Garey

Clinical Experts: Allison Baker, MD , Max Van Gilder, MD

What You'll Learn

How much sleep do teens need to be healthy?
What part does biology play in teens’ sleep?
How does screen time affect sleep?

Most teens today are living with mild to severe sleep deprivation. Teens actually need more sleep than little kids. Experts say teens need over nine hours a night to be healthy. But over a third of teens get only five to six hours a night. The major reasons for sleep deprivation in teens are biology, screen time and unreasonable expectations.

Because of hormone changes, teens are more awake at midnight and would wake at 10 or 11am if they didn’t have to get to school. When kids try to catch up on sleep on the weekends, it messes with their sleep even more.

Another reason for sleep deprivation in teens is the time they spend on screens. The light coming from the screen keeps their brains from making melatonin, which is the sleep hormone. Between doing homework on computers and socializing on phones, that means a lot of screen time. And then there’s the anxiety of kids who want to be perfect in school. Staying up all night to study becomes competitive among some groups of high-achieving friends.

We also live in a culture that values activity over sleep. Teens often participate in more activities than they have time for. A lot of times that’s because they’re being told that colleges want them to be well-rounded. But the more they do, the less sleep they get. This is made worse by the fact that some high schools start as early as 7:20 in the morning. In reality, studies show that teens don’t function well before 9am.

My 16-year-old daughter is finally entering the homestretch of sophomore year, and she has been chronically sleep deprived since September. The reasons are multiple but when you add together 45 minutes of homework per class per night, plus a few extra-curricular activities, plus the downtime spent everyday watching a John Green video on YouTube or chatting with friends, and a normal amount of procrastination, it adds up to between 5 and 7 hours of sleep on an average school night. Throw in a term paper or heavy exam week and the average can easily drop to 3 or 4.

My daughter is hardly atypical. In fact, multiple studies have shown that the vast majority of teens today are living with borderline to severe sleep deprivation. According to sleep expert Mary Carskadon, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University and director of chronobiology and sleep research at Bradley Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, teenagers actually need more sleep than younger kids, not less. Nine and a quarter hours of sleep is what they need to be optimally alert. According to a 2010 large-scale study published in The Journal of Adolescent Health , a scant 8% of US high school students get the recommended amount of sleep. Some 23% get six hours of sleep on an average school night and 10% get only 5 hours.

In studies conducted by Dr. Carskadon, half the teens she evaluated were so tired in the morning that they showed the same symptoms as patients with narcolepsy, a major sleep disorder in which the patient nods off and falls directly into REM sleep.

When you consider the fact that many of these kids are getting behind the wheel in the early morning and driving themselves to school, the issue of sleep becomes literally a matter of life and death.

What’s going on here?

So what exactly is keeping teenagers up so late? Unfortunately biology, technology, and societal expectations together create a perfect storm for the chronic sleep deprivation. The major contributors to adolescent sleep debt come down to these:

Along with the more obvious hormonal changes that transform your child into a teen, are shifts in the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone. That is why your teenager actually seems more awake at midnight than at dinner and left alone would probably sleep until ten or eleven. It may drive you crazy but, says Dr. Max Van Gilder, a pediatrician in Manhattan, “that is the normal circadian rhythm for 15- to 22-year-olds.” Effectively, they are in a different time zone than the rest of us.

“It’s a major contributing factor to sleep deprivation which is unique to adolescence,” says Dr. Allison Baker, a child and adolescent psychiatrist. “The typical high school student’s natural time to fall asleep is 11pm or later. We really need to adjust the environment instead of asking teenagers to adjust their physiology.”

The problem is compounded when many adolescents, like my daughter, try to make up for lost sleep on the weekends, sometimes sleeping upwards of 12 hours on Friday and Saturday nights, which only further disrupts their sleep cycle. But who has the heart to wake them?

It’s not just that Snapchat, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are distractions that keep kids up later, it’s the actual light coming off all the electronic devices they’re exposed to, especially late at night. Electronics emit a glow called blue light that has a particular frequency. When it hits receptors in the eye, says Dr. Van Gilder, “those receptors send a signal to the brain which suppresses the production of melatonin and keeps kids from feeling tired. And adolescents are low on melatonin and start producing it later to begin with.” Dr. Van Gilder says he’s seen adolescent bedtimes pushed back an hour to an hour and a half over the years since teens started doing their homework on computers. On average, my teenage patients are going to bed at around 12:30 now.”

Teens who are up late writing papers on computers or chatting with their friends are effectively creating an even more stimulating environment that will only keep them from being able to fall asleep when they want to.

Andrea Pincus and Andrew Multer consider it a good night when their 16 year-old son, Jake Multer, a sophomore at The Dalton School in Manhattan, gets to bed by 12:30. And there’s lots of fighting that goes on around the issue of homework and bedtime. “He tells us we micromanage him,” Pincus says. “He tells us we’re helicopter parents, but does he mention he stays up until 5 or 6am writing a paper?” Pincus and her husband are torn between making Jake go to bed and encouraging him to finish his work regardless of how long it takes. “There’s the anxiety of a kid like Jake who cares about the work. He works with a very nice group of kids on certain assignments and it’s great that they have each other but they also on some level add to the anxiety because you always have one kid who’s staying up later or pulling an all-nighter, putting in more work on a paper or studying for a test and it creates this extra anxiety and competition.”

His brother Sam, 13 and an eighth grader at Hunter College High School in Manhattan, is more or less resigned to being sleep deprived. He figures his current bedtime—anywhere between 11pm and 12:30am—which is so late “for the most part due to homework,” will only get later as he gets older. He says his parents want him to go to bed earlier but “they recognize that if I did that I wouldn’t get my work done and it’s important to me and it’s important to them.” Sam however also admits to having a procrastination and time management problem, some of which he believes comes from being so tired in the afternoon.

Over-scheduling

We live in a culture that values activity over sleep and there is no part of that culture that reinforces that idea more than the college admissions process. Teens are constantly being told that they have to be “well-rounded” which, in an age when colleges are becoming ever more selective means that the more they do, the better their applications will look. And for some kids, being involved in a lot of extracurricular activities may truly be a matter of pursuing a diversity of passions. Either way, the result is an ever-narrowing window for sleep.

Katrina Karl, 16, is finishing up her junior year at Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Connecticut. She takes 5 academic classes, participates in the three theatrical productions her school puts on every year and volunteers at the middle school in her town. On top of that she works 13 hours a week at a local grocery store to help pay for summer theater camp and to save money for college. This past year, she says, was brutal. “I was lucky if I got 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night,” she says. On the nights she worked, Karl wouldn’t get home until 9 or 10 o’clock. Then she would start doing several hours of homework. Katrina’s bus picks her up at 6:15am and the first period bell rings at 7:20am.

Karl says she’s been living this way since about halfway through freshman year. “ Everyone at my school is exhausted ,” she says.

Earlier school start times

Very early high school start times, like Karl’s, are not uncommon, despite the fact that they run completely counter to the biological needs of adolescents. “Multiple studies have shown that high school students aren’t functional before 9 am,” says Dr. Van Gilder.

Cathi Hanauer, an author and the editor of the anthology The Bitch In The House, has been at the center of a 7-year battle to change the 7:20 start time of her North Hampton, Massachusetts, high school. “It started before my daughter got to high school. She’s now one year out of college. My son is a sophomore. The resistance has been huge,” she says, “despite the fact that 60% of the students are falling asleep in school.”

According to Hanauer, it all comes down to bussing and sports. The school buses used for the high school are used for the middle and elementary schools that have later start times. Pushing back the start time for the high school would mean either making the younger kids get up earlier or adding more buses which is not in the school budget. Then there are concerns that later start times will compromise the practices of sports teams.

Hanauer and some of the other parents got a consultant in who designed an affordable busing plan and in 2013 the school board finally passed a resolution to move the high school’s start time to between 8:00 and 8:30. They have since overturned the decision. “I’m done,” Hanauer says. “It’s been the most frustrating thing I’ve ever been involved with.”

With more than half of American teenagers living with chronic sleep deprivation , parents and teachers tend to overlook the profound effects it has on kids’ physical, mental and behavioral health. The sleep deficit is not in fact, a normal part of being a teenager. It’s part of an invisible epidemic that we need to start addressing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Teenagers stay up late for three main reasons. First, biological shifts in the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, make teens stay up later. Second, social media can keep kids up and blue light from devices suppresses melatonin production. Third, having a lot of homework can keep kids up late.

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Homework negatively affects teen sleep schedules

Cassidy Klock , Associate Editor | October 13, 2021

Kelly Terrebone

As the end of the first quarter approaches, junior Kelly Terrebone works hard to complete her assignments before the deadline. Terrebone finished her work at 2:51 a.m.

On a survey done of 100 students, many teens have admitted their sleep schedule has affected them in a negative way.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends at least eight – 10 hours of sleep for any adolescent between the ages of 13 and 18. The survey done shows that 72.0% of students admitted to sleeping only three – four hours each night.

“Waking up in the morning I just feel drowsy,” junior Mason Crownover said. “I truly can’t remember the last time I’ve woken up during the week and felt refreshed and ready for the school day, but I know how important academics are so I pull myself together and just get ready.”

When asked why, 91% of students said that homework was what was keeping them up through the night.

“Between cheer, work and having any kind of social life, sometimes I can’t start my homework until 11 p.m.,” junior Kelly Terrebone said. “On average, I typically have about two hours per night. I’m not the type of person to not do my homework, so I make sure everything is complete before I even think about going to bed no matter the hour.”

However, this has not gone unnoticed by teachers. Some teachers have started to curb the amount of homework they give to their students.

“I always do my best to stay in touch with the student perspective,” Spanish teacher Dane Leone said. “I have been listening to some things that my students have been saying and there is a lot being crammed into their schedules. If you think about it, from the minute a student walks into school their entire day is scheduled for them. Security checks, reporting room, periods one through eight; then, the school day is up. The only unstructured time students have, unless they are lucky enough to have a study hall, is during lunch. And once the school day is over, many students have sports that they sometimes have to travel long distances for. By the time some of these kiddos finally get some free time, it may be 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. and only then can they start working on their homework. My goal for curbing homework assignments this year is to hopefully give my students some time to relax, enjoy their lives outside of school, and find some time to focus on themselves, their family, and their friends.”

According to Cleveland Clinic , some side effects of not getting enough sleep can include:

Impaired Immunity
High-blood pressure
Heart Attacks

“I know that my sleep schedule is unhealthy, but I would rather see a 100% on a test after I got two hours of sleep, rather than an 85% after getting eight hours,” Terrebone said. “School is beyond important to me, and I will do anything to see a 100% in the grade book, even if it ends up affecting my overall health.”

Some students have stated that they believe they have an advantage in school, due to their healthy sleeping habits.

“On average, I typically get seven to nine hours of sleep per night, depending on the amount of homework each night,” senior Ashtyn Hileman said. “One night I didn’t get enough sleep, and I was trying to read a book for one of my classes. I couldn’t focus enough to even get through the first chapter. If a student is doing that everyday, I can’t imagine how that feels for them and how badly it has affected their grade, even if they don’t notice it.”

School nurse Renne Weidlich, believes that the amount of sleep that adolescents are getting, could potentially be dangerous to their bodies.

“Lack of sleep can decrease your response time in certain situations in school and outside of school,” Weidlich said. “It can affect the ability to concentrate and focus on all aspects of the school environment. It can also worsen your mood and behavior. Lack of sleep has a negative effect on memory and blocks the brain’s ability to learn.”

Hello! I'm Cassidy Klock, and I am the Editor in Chief for the AAHS Mountain Echo. I've always had a passion for writing ever since I was a little girl,...

Chemistry Champion. Chemistry teacher Christine Falger was designated a comic book superhero during the 2023-2024 school year. She poses with her seventh period honors chemistry class, accepting the award. This is a result of the Climate and Culture squads work around the school, which focuses on building teacher morale. [Being part of a squad] is a big time commitment. We as a squad are required to give one hour of time a month, I am probably anywhere from eight to 12 hours a month, Krug said. [But the squads work] can make the high school a better place. I am really lucky to work with a number of teachers who also feel the same way. Even if we are doing more than some squads at the high school, we still feel like what were doing is really important.

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Continuing a legacy. Students join together to cut the ribbon of the opening of Rachel’s Closet. A new mural was painted inside for students to see while in the store.

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Spreading the message. Posters are hanging around the halls about the new club. The google classroom code is grprz3b.

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Happy hearts. A child in the hospital shows her heart-warming smile after receiving an Easter for Eli basket. The basket was filled with toys, games and other items to keep her entertained during her stay.

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Inspiring the next generation. The high school wind ensemble performs under the direction of Larry Detwiler. They were the final performance of the Band Bash, preceded by the elementary students at the beginning of the night and junior high school students in the middle.

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Marching on: Transgender teens discuss the challenges they face on a daily basis

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Korri F. • Oct 13, 2021 at 3:53 pm

Wow, a healthy sleep schedule within 8-10 hours blows my mind. Most of my school nights dont fall in place, I get at most- 6hours. We come together in school for 8hours and most people have jobs now. I work sometimes until closing on school nights and don’t get to start my homework until 12:15Am. I don’t believe homework is truly beneficial when it comes to our health and etches our life OUTSIDE of school.

Navay'on Helton • Oct 13, 2021 at 12:28 pm

Facts yo. Curb the homework, because us youngins are tying to live life.

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Are Students Who Sleep Better More Likely to Succeed?

Last Updated on January 10, 2024

Written by Jill Zwarensteyn

Written by Jill Zwarensteyn, Editor

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Find out more from our sleep if the students who sleep better are more likely to succeed.

It’s no secret that students face immense pressure to do well in school. For teens, good grades can determine the college you’re accepted into, and for college and grad students, academic success can impact your career goals.

Multiple factors can influence your achievements, but does sleep play a role? In this article, we’ll find out if students who sleep better are more likely to succeed.

We’ll also look at students’ current sleep patterns, how they can improve their rest, and why developing good sleeping habits now will help them later in life.

Are Students Getting Enough Sleep?

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teens should sleep [1] between 8 and 10 hours every night. 1 To develop these guidelines, the AASM developed a panel of 13 experts who reviewed over 800 articles of scientific research in order to come to an agreement on what is the optimum amount of sleep.

For more information, check out our best mattresses for teenagers page .

Student Group

Recommended Sleep

Average Sleep Among Group

High School

Less than 8h

They used a similar process for the recommended sleep time for adults [2] , with the help of a 15-person expert panel. They concluded that adults 18 and older should get 7 or more hours of shut-eye.

Using this data as a reference point, experts can analyze whether students are meeting the recommended amounts of sleep.

In a CDC national student sample [3] , they discovered that as many as 7 out of 10—or 72.7 percent—of students weren’t sleeping enough on school nights. Most of these students were sleeping for less than 8 hours, and the alarmingly high numbers reveal just how prevalent sleep deprivation is among young people.

Unfortunately, college and grad students aren’t doing much better. The University of Georgia [4] Health Center reports that most college students only get 6-6.9 hours of sleep each night, which is below the minimum recommendation of 7.

A 2020 study examined stress and burnout among graduate students. Their findings also looked at how well grad students slept. They reported that the study participants only slept an average of 6.4 hours per night [5] .

Learn More: How Much Sleep Do Teens Need ?

What Causes Teens and Young Adults to Lose Rest?

Why, then, are so many young people not sleeping well? There are a variety of reasons contributing to this trend.

Late-Night Homework

Many students will often stay up late trying to study for an exam or work on homework. While some may have to do homework later due to extracurricular activities or a job, others may need the extra time to meet the demands of multiple classes.

Between computers, video games, and cell phones, young people are surrounded by technological distractions. Unfortunately, screen time can affect your quality of sleep. Research shows us that screen time before bed can impact people of all ages for several reasons [6] .

The first is that the blue light emitted from the screen reduces the production of the melatonin hormone, which is responsible for keeping your sleep-wake cycle running smoothly. The second reason is that the devices stimulate your brain, making it difficult to quiet your mind as you prepare to sleep. Thirdly, notifications going off during the right could disrupt your REM – or deep sleep – cycle.

It’s also worth noting that even when you don’t use devices before bed, tech distractions may also cause you to put off doing homework and other tasks until later, which could still throw off your sleep schedule.

Emotional Stress

Dartmouth College [7] reports that over 50 percent of chronic sleep problems are caused by emotional stress, including depression and anxiety. They go on to add that high levels of stress can also lead to insomnia .

For teens and young adults, they are dealing with the demands of school, extracurricular activities, internships, and side jobs – all while trying to navigate social, family, and romantic relationships. A combination of these stressors could easily keep them from sleeping well.

Inconsistent Sleep Schedules

Not having a consistent bedtime and wake-up time can also affect how well-rested you are. While some students might maintain a good sleep schedule during the week, that can quickly go out the window when the weekend rolls around.

A 2009 study that looked at the sleep habits of university students in Taiwan determined that there’s a link between irregular sleeping patterns [8] and insufficient rest.

Living Environment

It’s not just your habits, though. The environment you sleep in may also influence your sleep quality.

College and graduate students, in particular, may have difficulty creating a relaxing sleep environment. From roommates to noisy neighbors, there are plenty of distractions that could keep you up at night.

Find Out More: 29 College Students Sleep Statistics

Sleep Disorders

Young people may also struggle with sleep disorders that interfere with rest. These include insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and restless leg syndrome. However, when it comes to sleep disorders, it’s best to consult with a physician who will be able to diagnose your sleep issue [9] properly.

Diet and Exercise

What you eat and drink can also trigger sleep problems. For example, caffeine and alcohol consumption can disrupt your sleep, while going to bed on a full or empty stomach may cause discomfort that makes it difficult to fall asleep.

Although exercise is essential for maintaining a healthy life, working out too late at night can give you a boost of energy that makes it hard to doze off at bedtime.

Get More Info: Exercise and Sleep – How to Target Your Workout Time

We might be quick to scold young people about their sleeping habits, but it’s not entirely their fault either. Research [10] established since the early 1990s determined that as teens got older, they were biologically wired to go to bed later. This is referred to as a Sleep Phase Delay, and it means that their circadian rhythm (or internal clock) makes it harder for them to go to bed before 11:00 pm.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t correlate with school and university schedules. Most schools begin classes [11] as early as 8:00 am, with some high schools starting even earlier at 7:30 am.

Signs of Sleep Deprivation

When you’re sleep-deprived, you will notice one – if not several – of these symptoms.

Mood Changes

Mood disorders like anxiety and depression can lead to a lack of rest, but little sleep can also exacerbate these conditions or create an increased risk of developing them. When they don’t sleep enough, students may also experience more negative moods [12] like frustration, irritability, sadness, and anger. These types of mood disorders and changes could hinder their relationships with teachers, peers, and family.

Get Sick More Often

Not getting adequate sleep also means you’re more likely to get sick, and it could influence how long it takes you to recover from an illness. When you sleep, your body releases protective proteins called Cytokines [13] . However, when you’re not getting enough rest, the production of this protein decreases, leaving you more vulnerable to infections and diseases.

Daytime Drowsiness

We all know those students who fall asleep in class, and at times we may have been those students. Rather than passing judgment on yourself or the behavior, consider it could be related more closely to sleep deprivation than laziness.

When you consistently feel sleepy during the day, there’s a high chance you didn’t get enough shut-eye the night before. Daytime drowsiness is also a common symptom to be aware of. Extreme tiredness in class is undoubtedly a cause for concern, but drowsiness can be dangerous – especially for students who drive since it increases their risk of an accident.

Inability to Concentrate

Difficulty concentrating is also an effect of sleep deprivation, and a lack of focus could certainly impact your ability to do well in school. When you’re unable to concentrate, you will notice you have a harder time paying attention in class and staying on track with homework and study assignments.

Memory Problems

Not enough rest could also negatively affect your memory, and for students who need to retain important information for tests and presentations, this is not good news. In the event you notice you’re more forgetful than usual, it’s a good opportunity to review your sleep habits.

Less Physical Strength

While some students participate in athletics for fun, others may rely on sports to get important scholarships and college opportunities.

Just as food fuels your body, so does sleep. However, when you don’t get the rest you need, you will have less physical strength and energy. This means you are less likely to perform as well as you could, which is why rest is so crucial.

In fact, the data supports this. A 2011 study looked at how sleep affected the performance of college basketball players.

They discovered that basketball players who achieved optimal sleep also reached their peak athletic performance [14] .

Even for young people who don’t participate in their school’s sports, this can cause them to feel less inclined to exercise altogether.

Do Successful Students Sleep More?

Although this information implies that sleeping better leads to more success in school, is there actual data that proves it? Yes.

For example, a 2015 study [15] wanted to see if there was a correlation between sleep duration and academic performance among pharmaceutical students. Their research found that students who sleep longer did better on exams, resulting in higher semester grades and GPAs.

How Can Students Sleep Better?

Now understanding the relationship between sleep and success, students can take the initiative to improve their sleeping habits.

No Homework or Technology Right Before Bed

Students should avoid homework, studying, and technology – including social media – about an hour before bed.

As tempting as it is to stay up late for more study time, the research shows us that you are more likely to do better if you go to bed earlier. In the event you have homework due the next day, experts recommend getting up early to finish it instead.

It might be hard to give up scrolling through Instagram or playing video games, but cutting off your screen time before bed should also help your mind relax to fall asleep.

Find Out More: The Effect of Technology on Sleep

Create a Better Sleep Environment

For students who have trouble sleeping, improving their sleep environment could result in a better night’s rest. Light, temperature, and noise [16] are three main environmental factors that can affect sleep.

For students with noisy roommates who stay up later, try using devices like sleep masks or earplugs. Blackout curtains can also help knock out extra light from outside. It’s also a good idea to monitor your room’s temperature so that it’s not too hot or too cold, which should help you rest more comfortably.

Stick to a Schedule

Another helpful tip is to stick to a regular sleep schedule by going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time every day. While this might be more of a challenge on weekends, a consistent schedule should help keep your body’s internal clock in check.

Avoid Caffeine and Alcohol

Cutting out caffeine, particularly later in the day and at night, seems like a no-brainer, but you might be tempted to use it while you finish up your homework. Rather, opt for a glass of water or a decaffeinated drink to give you some energy.

In addition to caffeine, experts also suggest avoiding alcoholic beverages. For students of legal drinking age, you might think a glass of wine can help you wind down. While alcohol does make you sleepy, it could also lead to more disrupted sleep.

Don’t Eat Right Before Bed

When you’re going from class to class and then an evening team practice, rehearsal, or study session, you could easily find yourself putting off dinner until late at night. Instead of having a big meal, though, opt for a light snack that won’t leave you feeling uncomfortably full during the night.

Exercise Regularly

Regular workouts should also help you sleep better. According to research, students who are in good physical condition fall asleep more quickly and rest better. For optimum results, you should exercise for at least 30 minutes three times a week about 5-7 hours before your bedtime – if not earlier.

Manage Your Concerns

Whether they’re school-related or personal, worries have an awful habit of creeping up at night. When you find that your worries keep you up, a good idea is to jot them down. Then, try to come up with solutions before you go to bed and plan your schedule for the next day.

Writing them down and creating a game plan should make it easier for you to let go of those concerns when you go to sleep.

How Will Better Sleep Help Students Later in Life?

The great news is that developing good habits as a student should translate to not only academic success but also success later in life when you enter your respective career field. Many high-level jobs will need you to function to the best of your ability, and if you’re not well-rested, this could affect your job performance. That’s why creating good habits early on is so important.

Good sleep should also keep you healthy [17] as you age. A full night’s sleep should help prevent weight gain, boost your immune system, strengthen your heart, and improve your memory.

Sources and References:

[1] Shalini. Paruthi MD, Lee J. Brooks MD, Carolyn. D’Ambrosio MD, Wendy A. Hall PhD RN, Suresh. Kotagal MD, Robin M. Lloyd MD, Beth A. Malow MD MS, et al. “ Recommended Amount of Sleep for Pediatric Populations: A Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine”, American Academy of Sleep Medicine , 2016.

[2] Nathaniel F. Watson MD MSc, M. Safwan. Badr MD, Gregory Belenky MD, Donald L. Bliwise PhD, Orfeu M. Buxton PhD, Daniel. Buysse MD, David F. Dinges PhD, “ Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: A Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society”, American Academy of Sleep Medicine , 2015.

[3] “Sleep in Middle and High School Students” , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, September 10, 2020.

[4] “Sleep Rocks!…Get More of it!” , University Health Center at the University of Georgia

[5] Hannah K. Allen, Angelica L. Barrall, Kathryn B. Vincent, Amelia M. Arria, “ Stress and Burnout Among Graduate Students: Moderation by Sleep Duration and Quality”, Springer Link, 2020.

[6] “Why It’s Time to Ditch the Phone Before Bed” , SCL Health

[7] “Improving Sleep” , Dartmouth College

[8] Jiunn-Horng. Kang, Shih-Ching. Chen, “ Effects of an irregular bedtime schedule on sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, and fatigue among university students in Taiwan”, National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2009.

[9] “Sleep Deprivation” , Cedars Sinai

[10] Ruthann Richter, “Among teens, sleep deprivation an epidemic” , Stanford Medicine, 2015.

[11] Anne G. Wheaton PhD, Gabrielle A. Ferro PhD, Janet B. Croft PhD, “ School Start Times for Middle School and High School Students — United States, 2011–12 School Year” , Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015.

[12] “Mood and Sleep” , Better Health Channel

[13] Eric J. Olson MD, “Lack of sleep: Can it make you sick?” , Mayo Clinic, November 28, 2018.

[14] Cheri D. Mah, Kenneth E. Mah, Eric J. Kezirian, William C. Dement, “ The effects of sleep extension on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players”, National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2011.

[15] Megan L. Zeek PharmD, Matthew J. Savoie PharmD, Salisa C. Westrick PhD MS, “ Sleep Duration and Academic Performance Among Student Pharmacists”, National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2015.

[16] “External Factors that Influence Sleep” , Harvard University, December 18, 2007.

[17] “The Benefits of Getting a Full Night’s Sleep” , SCL Health, 2018.

Jill Zwarensteyn

About author.

Jill Zwarensteyn is the Editor for Sleep Advisor and a Certified Sleep Science Coach. She is enthusiastic about providing helpful and engaging information on all things sleep and wellness.

Combination Sleeper

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The CavChron

How does homework affect a high school student’s sleep schedule.

Here+at+HBHS%2C+this+is+a+typical+homework+assignment+from+an+AP+level+class.+The+amount+of+homework+a+student+has+can+have+disastrous+effects+on+their+health+and+sleep+schedule.+%E2%80%9CKids+shouldn%E2%80%99t+be+given+more+than+two+hours+of+homework+a+day%2C+%5Bpreferably%5D+one+hour+a+day+outside+of+school%2C%E2%80%9D+said+Christina+Ellis.

Elise Dinbergs

Here at HBHS, this is a typical homework assignment from an AP level class. The amount of homework a student has can have disastrous effects on their health and sleep schedule. “Kids shouldn’t be given more than two hours of homework a day, [preferably] one hour a day outside of school,” said Christina Ellis.

Elise Dinbergs , Co-A&E Editor November 26, 2019

The average high school student struggles to find time in the day to balance their homework and extracurricular activities, which can often have a negative impact on them. For those attempting to find time to fit in all their homework and activities, sleeping may seem like an option instead of a need, but it really is necessary.

In our society today, students are pushed to succeed in various ways, whether it is through standardized testing, such as the PSAT, SAT, or ACT, or are exerted to their limit to get exceptional grades. Maintaining all these academic pressures can be disastrous to a teen’s physical and mental health, according to a study done by Stanford University’s Sleep Disorder Clinic. In fact, sleep deprivation among teens has many negative effects, such as drowsiness, bad grades, anxiety, and an inability to concentrate, just to name a few.

These problems continue to fester in teen’s lives, and oftentimes, kids don’t even realize that they are really tired. They are acclimated to doing homework and other assignments late into the night. Students would benefit if they spent less time on this homework, so that they wouldn’t be staying up too late and would be able to go to sleep at a healthy hour.

“Kids are staying up too late doing homework, and I think it would be better for everyone’s health if they got more sleep,” said Christina Ellis, a history teacher at HBHS. Time management is another skill that kids could use to figure out what they have to do and can do in a day. Waiting until the last minute to do assignments keeps kids awake late each night, which can create an unhealthy cycle of sleep deprivation.

Sleep deprivation is a huge problem across the country. Many students feel pressured to take as many high-level AP classes as they can to ‘succeed’, when in reality, it leaves them bogged down with homework and stress. Going a long period of time without adequate sleep can have negative impacts on a student’s academics , as their brains aren’t working as well as they should be.

The amount of homework students have nightly is based on the level of classes they are taking in school. Balancing sports and homework is not an easy feat, and teachers still assign the same homework, regardless of whether or not a student is extremely occupied that night with activities.

“I believe that 90 minutes of homework would be appropriate,” said Susan Joyce, a guidance counselor at HBHS. “Overloading a student with homework, after they have already sat through a 7 hour school day and extracurriculars, sports or jobs, and can exhaust them by the time they get home, so the student is too tired to complete any of their assignments.”

Sometimes, sleep deprivation due to homework is not at the fault of the student. Many teachers believe that they should assign a large amount of homework so that their students can succeed in class. When students are taking 6 or 7 classes with that kind of mentality, they can be overwhelmed.

“There’s certain classes that assign way too much homework and it’s overdoing it. I think most teachers’ mentality is more is more,” said Vero Leblanc ‘20. The pressure for a student to succeed is so elevated that it comes at the cost of that student’s health and wellbeing. Teachers at HBHS should work to plan their homework schedules accordingly, so that the students aren’t overwhelmed and can maintain a healthy sleep schedule.That way, they can be healthy and are able to perform better in class.

Elise Dinbergs ‘20 is joining the CavChron staff as a first-year A&E editor. She is really enthusiastic to fulfill this role, as she is heavily involved...

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A teenager’s hand is seen checking a notification on their iPhone, which tends to be a habit for almost every age group. Whether the notification is from PowerSchool or not, the natural instinct to check ones phone explains why students check PowerSchool as often as they do. “I know many students who check it multiple times a day,” said Melissa Moyer, HBHS Guidance counselor. (Daria Nepriakhina epicantus, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

PowerSchool: Is Rapid Access to Grades Bad?

Fireworks and confetti shoot off, as fans cheer for the end of a night of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The Eras Tour served as an opportunity for Swifties to connect with each other and the fandom as a whole. “I went to the Eras tour with my son, we had such a great time,” said fan Kathleen Brown.

2023: The Year of Swifties

Polls Archive

Nurse Kelly (Left) and Nurse Kate (Right) enjoying their last day of school before Thanksgiving break. They both are working hard to make sure everyone is immunized and have all of their paperwork in from the doctors.

Q&A with HBHS’s Nurses

Green Group students Mark Croteau ‘25 and Adrienne Rosenblatt ‘25 work hard in HB’s on-campus garden. The students describe the garden as a “safe space” for the plants, and students to grow. “Join us, you’ll love it, says Croteau.

Green Group: Growing Plants and Local Awareness

Students Lolly Adair ‘25 (left) and Y’arie Ramas ‘25 (middle) smile with their former English teacher Marie Salamone. Salamone has been teaching for over 25 years and currently instructs Accelerated English 9, Writing, College Composition and World Literature. “Bottom line, Mrs. Salamone’s the GOAT,” said Ramas.

Sitting Down with Sal: A Q&A with Mrs. Salamone

HBHS welcomes nine new staff members this year, including Laurie Bakker (left), Jordan Scott (middle) and Ashley Fletcher (right).

HBHS’s New Faculty Members

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HB’s Red Cross Club

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Study: people with crazy and hectic work schedules can have problems down the line with sleep and depression

The study’s author says new technology and an emerging gig economy has combined to produce...

(CNN/WSAW) - A new study is showing that a crazy and hectic work schedule could affect your health later in life. The study suggests people working shift hours outside of a normal nine to five schedule could lead to poor sleep, fatigue, and depression down the line.

Researchers used data from more than 7,000 people in the US. It looked at those who had a standard work schedule from a start time of 6a.m. or later, and ending at 6p.m. The study found that people who took on a more tense schedule outside those hours, in their 20′s, 30′s, and 40′s showed the poorest health by age 50.

The study’s author says new technology and an emerging gig economy has combined to produce non-standard work schedules for more and more people.

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Can Working Out Before Bed Affect Sleep? Experts Explain

Sleep specialists answer once and for all if exercise at night affects rest.

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What type of exercise is best before bed?

What is the best time of day for exercise, how does exercise benefit sleep, what else can help you sleep better.

The benefits of working out are vast ( walking can lower your risk of type 2 diabetes and early death , and generally boosts heart health ). But with busy schedules and only 24 hours in a day it can be difficult to find the time. By nighttime, if you haven’t gotten your steps in, working out before bed may feel like the only option. But could it affect your sleep; and is it better than forgoing exercise altogether?

Meet the Experts: Nicole Avena, M.D. , research neuroscientist, expert in nutrition and diet, brain health and wellness; Angela Holliday-Bell, M.D. , board-certified physician, certified sleep specialist, and host of The Art of Sleep ; Aric Prather, Ph.D., sleep expert and co-developer of Headspace’s Finding Your Best Sleep program.

While exercise and sleep are essential to overall health, working out too close to bedtime may prevent you from getting the best rest possible. Ahead, experts explain if it’s a good idea to work out before bed, the best type of exercise to do at night, and more.

Does exercising before bed impact sleep?

It’s not a problem for everyone, but for many, vigorous exercise before bed can give them a burst of energy, raise their body temperature , disrupt their wind down, and make it harder to fall asleep, says Aric Prather, Ph.D., sleep expert and co-developer of Headspace’s Finding Your Best Sleep program.

If you are engaging in a high-intensity workout, your body experiences an increase in metabolic rate, adrenaline, blood pressure, and heart rate, and it takes time for your body to return to its normal and relaxed state, says Nicole Avena, M.D. , research neuroscientist, and an expert in nutrition and diet, brain health, and wellness. “This means if you were to exercise before you go to sleep, you run the chance of not allowing your body enough time to wind down (including cool down).” If your body isn’t in its relaxed state before bed, it’s more difficult to fall and stay asleep, she explains.

For many people, exercising before bed can increase body temperature too much, notes Angela Holliday-Bell, M.D. , board-certified physician, certified sleep specialist, and host of The Art of Sleep . “And since a one to two-degree drop in body temp is needed in order to transition to and maintain sleep, exercising before bed can hinder your ability to fall asleep.” Endorphins that are often released due to exercise can also be stimulating and make it more difficult to fall asleep, she adds.

If you’re going to exercise before bed, it’s best to engage in low-intensity exercises, says Dr. Avena. “Activities like yoga or going on an evening walk can help to stretch and relax your muscles without spiking your adrenaline.” These movements can improve your sleep by allowing your mind and body to relax while reducing stress , adds Dr. Avena.

Dr. Holliday-Bell agrees that exercises requiring less exertion like yoga or gentle stretching are ideal before bed. “It’s best to avoid exercises that are too strenuous as they can cause the body temperature to be elevated too long, making it difficult to fall asleep,” she explains.

The best time of day for exercise is the time of the day you can fit it in, says Prather. However, evidence suggests that exercising earlier in the day can benefit sleep, including increasing deep sleep , he notes.

Research even notes that the morning is the best time of day for exercise, says Dr. Avena. One study found that people who worked out in the morning slept longer, experienced deeper sleep cycles, and spent 75% more time in the most reparative stages of slumber (both mind and body) than those who exercised at later times in the day.

Research also suggests that people who exercise earlier in the day find it easier to stay focused and tend to make healthier food choices, says Dr. Avena. “Starting your day with a workout can set a positive tone, making you more aware of your dietary choices throughout the day,” she explains.

There’s also the thought that working out in the a.m. boosts metabolism , and research supports this, too. One recent study found that early morning activity—between 7 and 9 a.m.—could help with weight loss. Another study suggests that late-morning exercise could be more effective than late evening exercise in terms of boosting the metabolism and burning fat.

For Dr. Avena, “being active in the morning improves my ability to concentrate, focus, and retain information throughout my workday.” Studies even show that exercise may help decrease overall stress levels and improve well-being, she notes.

It’s likely that exercise benefits sleep for several reasons, says Prather. First, sleep helps relieve stress. “Stress is one of the biggest reasons why so many have chronic sleep problems, and getting regular exercise has been shown to be a reliable stress-buster,” says Prather. Second, regular exercise helps regulate our circadian rhythm —our internal clock. “This stability makes [the] time we wake up and the time we get sleepy at night reliable,” Prather explains. Third, there is some evidence to suggest exercise can improve slow-wave sleep , which is our deepest sleep and the aspect of sleep most often linked to restoration, he adds.

Exercise in general may cut down the time it takes for someone to fall asleep while also reducing the number of times they wake up in the middle of the night, says Dr. Avena. “Overall, it results in a deeper and more restful night’s sleep if you give your body enough time to properly cool down before bed,” Dr. Avena says. The effect exercise has on stress reduction and overall mental wellbeing can play a big role in benefiting quality sleep, she adds.

Regular exercise is one aspect of good sleep hygiene, but it’s not the only one, says Prather. “Be sure to create a supportive wind down prior to bed and disconnect from work and other things that keep your mind buzzing at least an hour before you want to get to sleep,” Prather says. Avoiding alcohol a couple of hours before bed and cutting off your caffeine consumption by the early afternoon will also help you get better sleep, Prather advises.

Keeping a consistent schedule is also key when it comes to getting good sleep , meaning try waking up and going to sleep around the same time each night, says Dr. Holliday-Bell. “Having a consistent and non-stimulating bedtime routine can help protect against stress and make it easier to fall asleep. Also, sleeping in a bedroom space that is dark, quiet, cool, and clutter-free can lead to better sleep as well,” Dr. Holliday-Bell notes. Getting natural light exposure first thing in the mornings also helps to reinforce your circadian rhythm making it easier to wake up and fall asleep, she adds.

The bottom line

If you find yourself frequently waking up in the middle of the night or restless before bed, try switching to low-impact or low-intensity exercise before bed. Or, move your high-intensity workouts earlier in the day, says Dr. Avena.

Although research shows that working out before bed may disrupt your sleep schedule, any exercise is better than no exercise, says Dr. Holliday-Bell. “Try not to exercise within three to four hours of your bedtime. However, if that is the only time you can be physically active, it is still recommended that you do so, just be mindful of having a strong bedtime routine,” she says.

Madeleine, Prevention ’s assistant editor, has a history with health writing from her experience as an editorial assistant at WebMD, and from her personal research at university. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in biopsychology, cognition, and neuroscience—and she helps strategize for success across Prevention ’s social media platforms.

Raj Dasgupta, M.D. is an ABIM quadruple board-certified physician specializing in internal medicine, pulmonology, critical care, and sleep medicine. He practices at the University of Southern California, where he is an associate professor of clinical medicine, assistant program director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program, and the associate program director of the Sleep Medicine Fellowship. Dr. Dasgupta is an active clinical researcher and has been teaching around the world for more than 20 years.

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Associations of time spent on homework or studying with nocturnal sleep
The present study aimed to address these gaps in knowledge by examining how students in a highly-competitive academic setting allocate their time on school days and weekends, and the degree to which homework/studying may displace sleep and affect mood. Our first objective was to evaluate students' time use on school days and weekends.
How Does Homework Affect Students Sleep?
The Impact of Homework on Teenage Stress and Sleep. Homework is a major source of stress for teenagers, affecting their sleep patterns. According to studies, about 75% of high school students report grades and homework as significant stressors. This anxiety can lead to sleep deprivation, with over 50% of students reporting insufficient rest.
Homework, Sleep, and the Student Brain
In the study "What Great Homework Looks Like" from the journal Think Differently and Deeply, which connects research in how the brain learns to the instructional practice of teachers, we see moderate advantages of no more than two hours of homework for high school students.For younger students, the correlation is even smaller. Homework does teach other important, non-cognitive skills such as ...
Teens, Sleep and Homework Survey Results
For teens to get the sleep their bodies need for optimal school performance, they should consider the following tips: Establish a consistent bedtime routine. Just like they set time aside for homework, they should schedule at least 8 hours of sleep into their daily calendars. It may be challenging in the beginning, but it will help in the long run.
The Effect of Sleep Quality on Students' Academic Achievement
Background. Sleep is an inseparable part of human health and life, and is pivotal to learning and practice as well as physical and mental health. 1 Studies have suggested that insufficient sleep, increased frequency of short-term sleep, and going to sleep late and getting up early affect the learning capacity, academic performance, and neurobehavioral functions. 2, 3 Previous studies have ...
School and Sleep
Elementary and middle school students typically need to sleep for nine to 11 hours each night, and early start times for schools can leave them with less time to complete their homework and relax in the evening. In recent years, some education experts have suggested starting classes later in the morning to help students feel less tired and more ...
PDF Sleep Prioritization Survey 2020 Student Activities Results
90% of parents report that homework affects the ability of their children/teens to get enough sleep on school nights. This includes 39% who answered "large impact," 32% who answered "medium impact" and 19% who answered "small impact.". A higher number of respondents reported early school start times (90%) and homework (90%) have the ...
Better Sleep Council Research Finds That Too Much Homework Can Actually
For teens to get the sleep their bodies need for optimal school performance, they should consider the following tips: Establish a consistent bedtime routine. Just like they set time aside for homework, they should schedule at least 8 hours of sleep into their daily calendars. It may be challenging in the beginning, but it will help in the long run.
The Impact of Sleep on Learning and Memory
For many students, staying awake all night to study is common practice. According to Medical News Today, around 20 percent of students pull all-nighters at least once a month, and about 35 percent stay up past three in the morning once or more weekly.. That being said, staying up all night to study is one of the worst things students can do for their grades.
Causes and consequences of sleepiness among college students
Good sleep hygiene includes a regular sleep-wake schedule, quiet sleep environment, and avoidance of caffeine after lunch and stimulating activities before bed.34,35 Substances are not the only aspect of inadequate sleep hygiene, as the ubiquitous use of technology before bed may also adversely affect sleep. Many students have inadequate ...
The Effects Homework Can Have On Teens' Sleeping Habits
According to Oxford Learning, homework can have other negative effects on students. In their article, Oxford Learning remarks, "56 percent of students considered homework a primary source of stress. Too much homework can result in lack of sleep, headaches, exhaustion, and weight loss". Similarly, Stanford Medicine News Center reports that ...
Sleep research shows how homework is harmful
Sleep research shows how homework is harmful. "More than 70 percent of high school students average less than 8 hours of sleep," according to an October 1 research letter in JAMA Pediatrics ( "Dose-Dependent Associations Between Sleep Duration and Unsafe Behaviors Among US High School Students" ). "Falling short of the 8 to 10 hours ...
How Would Later School Start Times Affect Sleep?
Around the beginning of puberty, most adolescents experience later sleep onset and wake times, also called "phase delay". This phase delay can shift the body's internal clock back by up to two hours. As a result, the average teenager cannot fall asleep until 11:00 p.m. and would do best waking up at 8:00 a.m. or even later.
Sleep Patterns & Time Management. Topic: School & Sleep
How Does Homework Affect Student Sleep Patterns? According to The Better Sleep Council, most American teens spend over fifteen hours a week on homework, one-third reporting over 20 hours. This averages around 2-3 hours per day and one can easily see how homework is a huge time commitment.
More than two hours of homework may be counterproductive, research
Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor. • Reductions in health: In their open-ended answers, many students said their homework load led to sleep deprivation and other health problems. The ...
Homework vs. Sleep: A Major Cause of Stress in Teens
Homework stresses kids out; there is no way around this fact. The combination of heavy homework loads and early school start times is a major cause of sleep deprivation and consequent stress in teens, but this can be a problem even in younger kids. When we moved to Connecticut, I was struck by the perception of some parents that my son's ...
Too Much Homework, Too Little Sleep: Structural Sleep Deprivation in Teens
However, the typical teenager requires between 8.5-9 hours of sleep per night, so even a teen with good sleep habits generally sleep deprived. In Boston, this problem is frequently exaggerated by school choice where some children are assigned to better schools which are a long bus ride away. (These issues exist elsewhere.
Sleep Deprivation in Teens
Most teens today are living with mild to severe sleep deprivation. Teens actually need more sleep than little kids. Experts say teens need over nine hours a night to be healthy. But over a third of teens get only five to six hours a night. The major reasons for sleep deprivation in teens are biology, screen time and unreasonable expectations.
Homework negatively affects teen sleep schedules
Homework negatively affects teen sleep schedules. As the end of the first quarter approaches, junior Kelly Terrebone works hard to complete her assignments before the deadline. Terrebone finished her work at 2:51 a.m. On a survey done of 100 students, many teens have admitted their sleep schedule has affected them in a negative way.
Are Students Who Sleep Better More Likely to Succeed?
While some may have to do homework later due to extracurricular activities or a job, others may need the extra time to meet the demands of multiple classes. Technology. Between computers, video games, and cell phones, young people are surrounded by technological distractions. Unfortunately, screen time can affect your quality of sleep.
Associations of time spent on homework or studying with nocturnal sleep
On school days, adolescents spent an average of about 6.5 hours each on nocturnal time in bed for sleep and classroom lessons, 3 hours for homework/studying, 2 hours for media use, and approximately 1 hour each for face-to-face family time, transportation, and co-curricular (school-based) activities (Table 1).As expected, students' time use differed substantially on weekends, when little or ...
How homework is affecting students' sleep
Nearly half (46 percent) of parents have reported that their children get 7 hours or less of sleep each night. One factor influencing this is homework. The survey found that the vast majority (88 ...
How Does Homework Affect a High School Student's Sleep Schedule?
Elise Dinbergs. Here at HBHS, this is a typical homework assignment from an AP level class. The amount of homework a student has can have disastrous effects on their health and sleep schedule. "Kids shouldn't be given more than two hours of homework a day, [preferably] one hour a day outside of school," said Christina Ellis.
New study shows crazy and hectic work schedules can cause ...
A new study is showing that a crazy and hectic work schedule could affect your health later in life. ... New study shows crazy and hectic work schedules can cause problems down the line with sleep ...
Does Working Out Before Bed Affect Sleep? Experts Explain
Keeping a consistent schedule is also key when it comes to getting good sleep, meaning try waking up and going to sleep around the same time each night, says Dr. Holliday-Bell. "Having a ...

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Associations of time spent on homework or studying with nocturnal sleep behavior and depression symptoms in adolescents from Singapore

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The Impact of Sleep on Learning and Memory

How does sleep improve the ability to learn?

How does sleep improve the ability to recall information?

How does sleep improve long-term memory?

How does sleep improve the ability to solve problems creatively?

So, what’s the point?

Causes and consequences of sleepiness among college students

Ronald D Chervin

Introduction

Regulation of normal sleep: the circadian rhythm and homeostatic sleep drive

Learning, memory, and sleep cycles

Causes of sleep deprivation and sleepiness

Inadequate sleep hygiene

Caffeine and energy drinks

Sleep disorders

Consequences of sleep deprivation and sleepiness

Grade point average (GPA) and academic performance

Sleep disorders and academic performance

Driving, sleep deprivation, and alcohol

Mood effects

Potential interventions

Educational programs

Sleep courses

Electronic cognitive behavioral therapy

Class scheduling

The Lion's Roar

The Effects Homework Can Have On Teens’ Sleeping Habits

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