According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, young adults (including college students) require eight to ten hours of sleep per night for maximal levels of functioning. Studies from top universities like Harvard corroborate this claim. However, over 70% of college students report getting less than eight hours, and over 50% report getting less than seven – so what gives? 

Everyone reading this article knows as well as I do that college students are busy. Of course, academic responsibilities — from classes to coursework — must be accomplished. Apart from this, though, students may be involved in a musical ensemble, an athletic team, a student organization, a position on CLC, or any number of other ways to engage on campus. Involvement and engagement are wonderful, and you should absolutely participate in campus life — but overexertion and overcommitment are also real. When involvement and coursework encroaches on your sleep, it threatens your wellbeing, your academics and much more.

Let’s take a closer look at the effects of poor sleep on academics. All of us know that a bad night of sleep leaves you groggy and sluggish, and can affect your ability to pay attention — all of which impact your ability to stay engaged and attentive in class. Multiple studies have shown how poor attention stemming from lack of sleep harms grades. That’s fairly intuitive, so let’s look at another angle.

Some studies have indicated that being awake for 18 consecutive hours produces the same levels of cognitive impairment as a BAC of 0.05 — and pulling an all-nighter to put the final touches on that paper can produce impairment similar to a BAC over the legal limit at 0.10. Finally, chronic mediocre sleep can have the same impact — two weeks of 6 or less hours of sleep leaves you running on about the same level as someone who has been awake for 48 consecutive hours. Clearly, this is not a state in which to live. 

It’s not just your academics and cognitive functioning that can suffer, though. Your physical and mental well being depends on your sleep. Poor sleep is associated with all manner of physical and mental ailments: obesity, depression, anxiety and other mental health difficulties. While it’s not the primary causal factor for these conditions, poor sleep can contribute to them if you are already at risk. Furthermore, your immune system functions most effectively when you’re asleep. Recovery time from illness increases noticeably when sleep quality declines, and pain levels from exercise, injury, or just wear and tear do as well. Sleep is there to help you recover from the mental and physical grind of the day-to-day — don’t take it for granted.

Despite pressures to the contrary, it is (scientifically speaking) better to go to bed at the same time every night (and wake up early to hit that deadline) than it is to stay up late to finish work. The pressure to succeed and perform in college is real, but consider whether that extra club, that bonus 30 minutes of music practice, or that 18th credit hour is truly worth it.

With all that in mind, what can you do to improve your sleep? There are a multitude of answers. You can establish a wind-down routine, or set up a more powerful “do not disturb” schedule. You can work to avoid 8 a.m. classes, or you can go to bed earlier. You can avoid long naps, or take them earlier in the day. You can try to do all of these and more, but remember that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Any one of these will put you ahead on the journey towards better sleep.

The Genesis creation narrative tells us that God created us in his own image, and after he finished creating, he rested. While our imaging of God is imperfect, thanks to the Fall and our sinful nature, he still sets us apart as his special creation, designed to follow him. We are not machines, we are created, fallible, living beings… beings that need time to rest and recover. At the end of his work, God rested – and so should you.