Sleep and Academic Performances
As the semester progressed and after attending more neuroscience seminars, I was able to develop new methods and ways of reading and analyzing research papers and had a better understanding of what to pay attention to and what is more relevant. This helped me personally learn more about the different methods of research and ask better questions regarding application of research and how to possibly use the result of one research/study to come up with the next steps and further studies.
As a neuroscience student, I have learned a lot about about sleeping cycles and patterns. This was a topic that I had a special interest in. I was excited when I learned that researcher Eitan Schechtman was our speaker during our las neuroscience seminar on Tuesday, December 10th.
Dr. Eitan Schechtman gave a presentation in which he showed us a clinical review study called “State of the art on targeted memory reactivating: Sleep your way to enhanced cognition”. This study showed the importance of the effect of sleep on memory reactivating. The study focuses on how getting more adequate amount of sleep helped improving memory reactivation; this is due to the fact that sleep permits memory consolidation. He also mentioned that cues given during sleep helped benefit memory consolidation. Researchers believe that all of this is possible because sleep allows for a process called hippocampus replay; a process where the neurons fired during a task are activated again during sleep. This allows the brain to recall information regarding the cognitive tasks performed by the individual before sleep. This study is very useful to many people because it highlights the importance of sleep and how it can affect memory in individuals. It especially important to me as a student as we learn to get a good night’s sleep before an exam to be able to retain information during an exam or a test.
As this interested me as a student who pulls all-nighters on an exam night, I started looking more into it. I came across a study that compared academic performances based on how many hours of sleep a student got before an exam. Dr. Andrew J. K. Phillips conducted a study titled “Irregular sleeping patterns linked to poorer academic performance in college students ( Timing of sleep found to be as important as number of hours slept)” at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In his research, Dr. Andrew J. K. Phillips studied 61 full-time students from Harvard College over the period of 30 days. He used sleep diaries where students recorded how many hours of sleep they got as well as when did they sleep/ wake up. He used these sleep diaries and applied the sleep regularity index, SRI, to be able to quantify sleep regularity. He then looked at the relationship between SRI, sleep duration, distribution of sleep throughout the day, and one semester’s academic performance of these 61 students. The results indicated that irregular sleep and circadian rhythms correlated with poorer academic performance and lower GPA due to the delaying of timing of sleep and waking time that delayed the release of melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone. This is very interesting because it means that pulling an all-nighter has the opposite effect/outcome that the student is seeking in doing so. A student might think that staying awake for the whole night to study might only have a little impact on his health and is willing to sacrifice that in order to perform better on an exam; however, as it turns out, pulling an all-nighter can cause more serious problems, according to students, which is unable to perform well on an exam.
Combining the two researches together, it is safe to conclude that regular sleep patterns are essential in a student’s life routine. Students who get adequate amount of hours of sleep and have a regular “bed time” and waking up at a specific time everyday can and will perform better academically due to its impact on memory and cognition. Hopefully more students will look into theses researches and start making the change to a healthier lifestyle that will have a positive impact on their health as well as their academic performances, which is the goal for most students.
Reference:
Schouten DI, Pereira SIR, Tops M, Louzada FM. “State of the Art on Targeted Memory Reactivation: Sleep Your Way to Enhanced Cognition.” Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2016 April.
Phillips AJK, Clerx WM, O’Brien CS, Sano A, Barger LK, Picard RW, Lockley SW, Klerman EB, Czeisler CA. “Irregular sleep/wake patterns are associated with poorer academic performance and delayed circadian and sleep/wake timing.” Scientific Reports, 2017 June.
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