Sleeping More May Help College Students in the Classroom

 

There are many reasons why college and university students often fail to get full nights of sleep.

Many American students are away from their parents for the first time when they attend college. They might not be used to having total freedom in how they plan their days and nights.

Parties, late night study meetings, or just time spent relaxing with friends – these are all things that cut into college students’ sleep habits.

A few years ago, Michael Scullin began teaching¹ the science of sleep to psychology² students at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Scullin is an assistant professor at Baylor and the director of its Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory³.

The class centered round the why the body needs to sleep and the physical and mental health problems caused by a lack of sleep. This includes difficulty focusing on studies or controlling one’s emotions, and increased risk of many diseases⁵.

“When you are at your most sleep-deprived⁶ is when you are least likely to be able to judge how sleepy you are, and how much that sleepiness is impacting⁷ you,” Scullin told VOA.

He says his students seemed to enjoy the class and were interested in the material he was teaching. But when he asked them whether they were choosing to get more sleep after what they had learned⁸, most of them said no.

The United States Centers for Disease⁴ Control and Prevention states that adults need at least seven hours of sleep a night to stay healthy. So Scullin came up with a plan to get his students to sleep more: he offered to give them extra points on their final exam, the class’s most important test.

The plan worked better than Scullin expected. Students who slept more performed better in two different classes, and Scullin published his findings⁹ in two academic publications¹⁰ last November.

How did the study work?

Scullin started the experiment with his psychology students. He told them that if they agreed to sleep at least eight hours a night for the last five nights before the final exam, they would get several extra credit¹¹ points. But if they agreed to take part in the study and failed to get the required amount of sleep, they would lose points on the exam. The students would wear special devices¹² that recorded their sleep data.

Only eight out of the 18 total students in that first group agreed to take part in the experiment. Yet all the students who took part performed better on the exam than those who did not, even before the extra credit points were added. On average they earned about 5 points more on the exam.

Scullin then decided¹³ to repeat the study with another group of 16 design students. He chose not to punish students who failed to sleep the full eight hours per night, and got the same results.

Daniel Bessesen is a medical doctor who researches sleep, and was not involved in the study. He is also the Associate Director of the Anschutz Health and Wellness Center at the University of Colorado outside Denver. Bessesen notes this study does lend support to the idea that sleeping enough helps academic performance, and students who cram¹⁴ are likely worse off.

“Cramming” is a common activity for American college students. When students cram, they study most or all of the night before the exam. They get very little or no sleep because they think they will do better if the test material is fresh in their minds.

Bessesen says there are some problems with Scullin’s experiment. He says to be more scientific, the students should have been randomly¹⁵ chosen for sleeping or staying awake. Also, the two groups should have been studying the same subject and taking the same test. All of this may have affected¹⁶ the results of the study.

How to get people to sleep more

Yet Bessesen says this experiment does fit in with a larger body of research on the importance of sleep. In fact, the amount of sleep people get has been decreasing greatly, he says. A 2015 study found the number of Americans who sleep less than six hours a night increased by about 30 million between 1985 and 2012.

Scullin and Bessesen offer some ways to avoid health problems caused by a lack of sleep. Among these, they say, parents should try to get enough sleep themselves to demonstrate¹⁷ its importance to their children. Bessesen notes that even some medical school programs have begun to require student doctors to sleep more to prevent accidents.

Scullin also offers a few pieces of advice to his students who have difficulty falling asleep. They include the following:

Avoid looking at electronics¹⁸ before you are about to fall asleep.

Do not drink anything with caffeine in it, such as coffee or tea, less than six hours before you go to sleep.

Try to go to sleep at the same time every night.

If you are lying in bed trying to sleep and cannot calm your mind, get out of bed. Take out a piece of paper and spend five to ten minutes writing down all of your thoughts.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and cannot fall back asleep, get out of bed and go into another room. Do not turn on the lights! Instead, wait there until you start to feel tired again.

I’m Pete Musto. And I’m Dorothy Gundy.

Words in This Story

relax(ing) – v. to spend time resting or doing something enjoyable especially after you have been doing work

habit(s) – n. a usual way of behaving

focus(ing) – v. to direct your attention or effort at something specific

deprived – adj. not having the things that are needed for a good or healthy life

impact(ing) – v. to have a strong and often bad effect on something or someone

point(s) – n. praise, credit, or approval¹⁹ for doing something good or helpful

academic – adj. of or relating to schools and education

randomly – adv. chosen or done without a particular plan or pattern

caffeine – n. a substance that is found especially in coffee and tea and that makes you feel more awake

1 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

2 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

3 laboratory   

n.实验室，化验室

参考例句：

• She has donated money to establish a laboratory.她捐款成立了一个实验室。
• Our laboratory equipment isn't perfect,but we must make do.实验室设备是不够理想，但我们只好因陋就简。

4 disease   

n.疾病，弊端

参考例句：

• The doctors are trying to stamp out the disease.医生正在尽力消灭这种疾病。
• He fought against the disease for a long time.他同疾病做了长时间的斗争。

5 diseases   

n.疾病( disease的名词复数 )；弊端；恶疾；痼疾

参考例句：

• Smoking is a causative factor in several major diseases. 抽烟是引起几种严重疾病的病因。
• The illness frequently coexists with other chronic diseases. 这种病往往与其他慢性病同时存在。

6 deprived   

adj. 缺乏足够教育的；缺少食物的

参考例句：

• the stunted lives of children deprived of education 未受教育的孩子所过的局限生活
• They deprived the criminal of political rights for all his life. 他们剥夺那罪犯的终身政治权利。

7 impacting   

[医]撞击（的），碰撞（的）

参考例句：

• The canine is impacting on the incisor. 犬牙和门牙挤压在一起。
• The formal going-concern warning is impacting GM's relationship with some creditors. 审计师发出的这个“继续运营”正式警告对通用汽车与一些债权人的关系产生了影响。

8 learned   

adj.有学问的，博学的；learn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He went into a rage when he learned about it.他听到这事后勃然大怒。
• In this little village,he passed for a learned man.在这个小村子里，他被视为有学问的人。

9 findings   

n.发现物( finding的名词复数 )；调查（或研究）的结果；（陪审团的）裁决

参考例句：

• It behoves us to study these findings carefully. 我们理应认真研究这些发现。
• Their findings have been widely disseminated . 他们的研究成果已经广为传播。

10 publications   

n.发表( publication的名词复数 )；公布；出版；出版物

参考例句：

• The related publications are far too numerous to list individually. 相关出版物太多，没法一一列举。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request. 我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 credit   

n.信用，荣誉，贷款，学分；v.归功于，赞颂，信任

参考例句：

• I credit him with a certain amount of sense.我认为他有一定的见识。
• He got the credit,and we did the dirty work.他得荣誉，我们做不讨好的工作。

12 devices   

n.设备；装置( device的名词复数 )；花招；（为实现某种目的的）计划；手段

参考例句：

• electrical labour-saving devices around the home 节省劳力的各种家用电器
• modern labour-saving devices such as washing machines and dishwashers 诸如洗衣机和洗碗机之类的现代化省力设备

13 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

14 cram   

v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习

参考例句：

• There was such a cram in the church.教堂里拥挤得要命。
• The room's full,we can't cram any more people in.屋里满满的，再也挤不进去人了。

15 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

16 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

17 demonstrate   

vt.论证，证明；示范；显示；vi.示威游行

参考例句：

• Let me demonstrate to you how this machine works.我给你演示一下这台机器的运转情况。
• How can I demonstrate to you that my story is true?我怎样才能向你证明我的话是真实的呢？

18 electronics   

n.电子器件，电子学，电子技术

参考例句：

• About 45000 people worked in electronics in Scotland.苏格兰约有4.5万人在电子行业工作。
• He wants to brush up his knowledge of electronics.他想温习他的电子学知识。

19 approval   

n.赞成，同意；批准，认可

参考例句：

• The audience has expressed its approval.观众已经认可。
• The teacher signed his approval.老师做了手势表示同意。