The Detrimental Effects that lack of Sleep have on College Students' memory.
It is very common for college students to spend countless hours studying, even pulling all-nighters if needed. But when it’s time to take that exam, they spent numerous hours studying for it, and they just can’t seem to remember what they studied. Why is that? Many students believe that they can sacrifice their sleep to study more, which will pay off. However, research has shown obviously sleep and memory goes hand in hand. Studies have shown that sleep increases an individual's health, mental capacity, memory, and overall cognitive function. It is stated that the average sleep cycle lasts about 90 minutes and realistically you need 4-6 cycles of sleep every 24 hours (approximately 7-9 hours of sleep) to feel “well rested and refreshed.” It's critical to understand that you have and use different forms of memory for different tasks including working memory, sensory memory, short-term memory, and long-term memory. Throughout this blog post, we will focus on long-term memory (specifically your recall memory) and how sleep plays a critical role in long-term memory, especially for college students and studying for exams.
Looking at Dr. Cavanaugh and his team's work “developmental emergences of sleep rhythms enables long-term memory capabilities in drosophila,” will help better understand the role sleep plays in memory. Most humans follow the same circadian rhythm or sleep-wake pattern which is the 24-hour cycle. But it becomes a little tricky for college students or individuals with busy lives. We need 7-9 hours of sleep, but many college students feel that “4-5 hours of sleep and a coffee” will have them feeling quite refreshed, but then when it’s time to take that exam they can’t seem to recall what the studied the previous night. Comparing these studies to Dr. Zeek and his team from the article "Sleep quality, duration, and consistency are associated with better academic performance in college students" found that sleep duration impacted students' recall memory significantly, just as Dr. Cavanaugh and his team found, although Dr. Cavanaugh focused on how the way you sleep impacts your complex cognitive functions, including enduring memories.
Dr. Cavanaugh focused on fruit flies but he discussed that we all have a circadian rhythm for a reason, if we don’t get proper sleep, the proper transcriptions don’t occur, your bodies clock can’t regulate properly, and this all impacts your long-term memory (LTM) significantly. Dr. Zeek and his team tested individuals taking an exam with under 5 hours of sleep versus those who took an exam with more than 7 hours of sleep. Almost 47 percent of the students had problems recalling (a branch LTM) what they studied. This is because they lacked proper sleep, making it difficult to recall, concentrate, and problem-solve. Sleep deprivation also impacted their reaction time, so they had difficulties processing and responding to specific exam questions quickly. When looking at the other half of the students did well regarding recalling, concentration, comprehending, reacting, and so on. On the other hand, some outliers did somewhat well with only around 5 hours of sleep. This is simply because of the use of short-term memory. Many college students love the idea of "cramming." You're essentially taking in all the information at a high speed in a short amount of time, and yes you'll be able to recall most of that information for a short period. This method will work for some exams not all, and different people have higher capacities of retention, but this will only get you so far.
In conclusion, cramming sounds appealing, but in the end, short-term memory doesn’t last minutes or days. You'll be able to recall to some extent but that'll only work for specific exams that don't require deep recall. Sleep is critical if you want to do well on a test, your recall memory works best if you properly slept the night before. Cramming may work for quizzes or some exams, but for higher-level classes or big tests, research has shown it to be higher if the proper sleep patterns are followed. No one can function properly when they lack sleep, so for that next exam, study ahead of time to get proper sleep, for the best results.
References
The developmental emergence of sleep rhythms enables long-term memory capabilities in Drosophila Amy R. Poe, Lucy Zhu, Patrick D. McClanahan, Milan Szuperak, Ron C. Anafi, Andreas S. Thum, Daniel J. Cavanaugh, Matthew S. Kayser
Bigleyj. (2023, February 13). Sleep: How much you need and its 4 stages. Cleveland Clinic. Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://health.clevelandclinic.org/your-complete-guide-to sleep/
Academic Resource Center. How long is short-term memory? Shorter than you might think. | Duke Academic Resource Center. (2017, April 13). Retrieved March 3, 2023, from https://arc.duke.edu/how-long-short-term-memory-shorter-you-might-think
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