College Kids and Sleep: 4 Tips
It's best for your grades to be a morning person, if you can
Here's some unfortunate news for teenagers about to head off to college: New research being presented today at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies says that a morning person is apt to get better grades than a late riser. Researchers surveyed 824 college students enrolled in psychology classes about their sleep habits and daily functioning. Result: The better performers were not the ones who stayed up until the wee hours and slept till afternoon.
So what to do if you hate waking up in the morning? Use the summer to develop good sleep habits, and then minimize the damage come fall.
Be consistent. "The most important thing is try to maintain a consistent wake and bedtime in the summer," suggests Daniel Taylor, assistant professor at the University of North Texas and one of the study's authors. He'd advise going to bed most nights between 11 p.m. and midnight. If you do start turning in and getting up later once you're at school, continue to be as regular as possible, says Ana Allen Gomes, a professor at the University of Aveiro in Portugal, who has researched college students' sleeping patterns.
Become a morning person. At least two to three weeks before the semester starts, start training yourself. "The best way to do it is to wake yourself up successively earlier every few days, and get out in the sunlight ," says Taylor. The sunlight helps reset your internal clock.
Schedule classes with care. "A lot of kids turn into evening types when they go to college," Taylor says. So don't pick 8 a.m. classes just because you're used to waking up early for high school.
Compensate. If you're just not able to become an early riser, and do end up with early classes, plan some study time in the afternoon, when you're less likely to be tired, Gomes suggests. And avoid studying all night so that you're not exhausted in the morning.
Reader Comments
The point of the article ...
... was facts, not personal opinions. "of NY" says "I am not a morning person at all and personally as a student I don't think just because your a morning person you get better grades." It doesn't matter what you personally believe. The research showed what actually is. Your choice is what you will do with the information.
night person at school, OK, but what happens once you get a real job?
If you enjoy staying up late and taking afternoon/evening classes, that is perfectly fine, however, once you get job you will probably find it more difficult to convince your boss/company that you can maintain the same behavior.
Depending on your job you will probably have to be at work between 8 or 9 in the morning. Certainly night shifts and flexible hours do exist, but most business is conducted between 8 am and 5 pm. It might be wise to consider ideal job situation and adjust your morning routine based on what is required.
I am a night person. I work at night and I have all my classes at night. I find the schedule perfect, as it is what I dreamed about since high school, during all those times I woke up late and did not want to go to school. I still believe all my ranting and raving about only crazy getting up at the crack of dawn. Night owls rejoice! Once you get out of high school, you realize that learning does not need to happen in the day. As for the memory retention, I find that as long as I get my nine hours of sleep during the day, I can be totally focused and remember what I learn in school and at work perfectly fine. I would like to know about other people though.
Oh, and to prevent those other two from giving us a bad name, not all night people have poor grammar.
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