Circadian Rhythms and Sleep Affect College Students Learning

Recently, two significant people in the field of neuroscience recently gave a presentation of their current studies. The first speaker was Dr. Cavanaugh, in his discussion, he demonstrated what is currently known about the relationships between sleep and circadian rhythms. He demonstrated how there are distinct differences between the two topics. He first described sleep, which is regulated by our circadian clock which then causes a person to lose the responsiveness to their environment and external stimuli. He also stated that sleep is differentiated from a coma by its quick reversibility, which allows us to wake up at will. In contrast, circadian rhythms are known for their influence on the body. One of their main impact is to provide, “timekeeping in both clock neurons and peripheral tissues”. This allows a person to develop better sleeping patterns and regulates the secretion of melatonin at constant times throughout the week.

Our next speaker, Dr. Paller also focused on sleep. He studies how sleep impacts learning and declarative memory. We currently know that sleep naturally assists in the learning process. In his study, he discusses the effects on how sleep significantly improves learning in melodies and muscle movements. One of his studies demonstrated that listening to a melody while sleeping increased a person’s recollection of a particular memory when asked to perform a specific task. This is significant because it demonstrates that memory and learning can actually be impacted while sleeping.

Interestingly, when one juxtaposes the studies of Dr. Cavanaugh and Dr. Paller, the results can be directed into a discussion of an average college students sleep schedule. This topic has become a common discussion with the increase in people attending college in recent times. Considering the sleep deprivation that is a common challenge for college students, sleep, circadian rhythms and learning are critical to understand to better help and inform college students. Students are constantly disrupting their circadian rhythm to stay up to study for class, while this action may actually be damaging their performance in the long run.

CNN reported a recent study in which 61 students from Harvard College performed a research experiment in which they were separated in two different groups, regular sleepers or irregular sleepers. These groups were based on the time in which each student went to sleep. Experimenters were studying how sleep affects GPA. The researchers developed a scoring index that measures from 0-100, students would get ranked according to sleeping patterns. Irregular sleepers would be near 0 and regular sleepers would be near 100. What they found was that GPA’s would increase by .1 for every 10 points in their scoring index. According to Dr. Cavanaugh, the circadian rhythm is known for establishing adequate timekeeping for neurons. However, when there is irregular sleeping, there is a negative effect on the circadian rhythm that is responsible for regulating sleep. In addition to that, we know from Dr. Paller’s study that sleeping is critical for learning and memory. If there is an irregular sleeping pattern that is affecting the circadian rhythm, that will lead to less sleep. Due to the lack of sleep, this will begin to damage the memory and learning process that occurs during sleep. According to Dr. Czesler, he states that because the circadian rhythm is so drastically out of tune, it causes a biological time change in the body, meaning that, “an 8 a.m. class is a 5 a.m. class in biological time.” This means that the body is constantly out of rhythm, especially when it comes to the secretion of melatonin, an important hormone for sleeping. This all comes back to the resulting effect of an irregular circadian rhythm, which eventually leads to a lack of sleep. Dr. Paller demonstrated in his study that sleep has a connection with increased learning, and if a student lacks sleep, then it makes logical sense that it results in a lower GPA.

Overall, sleep is still widely unknown, however, we continue to increase our knowledge about it constantly. Thanks to research from Dr. Paller and Dr. Cavanaugh, we were able to better understand how the circadian rhythm functions in regulating sleep and how sleep is capable of helping the learning process.