College students who get less sleep on a daily basis are more likely to get bad grades, says a new study.
The Big Point: The study conducted on first-year college students in the United States, titled Nightly Sleep Duration Predicts Grade Point Average in the First Year of College, published in the PNAS journal stated:
“Lower average nightly sleep early in the academic term predicted lower end-of-term GPA. Every hour of lost total average nightly sleep was associated with a 0.07 reduction in end-of-term GPA.”
Night Owls: J David Creswell, Psychology Professor at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University and author of this study, told USNews that the first-year college students who participated in the study slept for around 6.5 hours each night, as opposed to the recommended sleep of 7 hours or more for people in their age group.
Sleeping Patterns: The study published on 13 February, added that the students clocked 6 hours and 29 minutes of sleep each night, with the duration going up to 6 hours and 58 minutes during the weekends. Here are some key patterns that the study found:
Average time to go to sleep: 2:01 am
Average time to wake up: 9:17 am
“Sensitivity analyses using sleep thresholds also indicated that sleeping less than 6 h each night was a period where sleep shifted from helpful to harmful for end-of-term GPA, relative to previous-term GPA.”
Too Much To Do, Too Little Time: The study authors found that for first-year kids who’ve just entered college, there’s pressure to do everything and more – hang out with friends, go to parties, enroll in clubs, study well, and even intern at places – which is what might to fewer hours of sleep for them.
Try This:
Maintain a routine where you try and go to sleep around the same time each night
Avoid coffee around your bedtime
Don’t use your phone when you’re in bed trying to sleep
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)