Video: The Student Body: Sleep in College

Sami: Professors don’t have to be mean about it. I feel bad telling them, Hey, I cannot do this because I didn’t sleep. Like…

Cassandra:Oh you, you want to sleep? You lazy. And I’m like, You’re right.

[group laughter]

Zach: That’s funny.

[more group laughter]

( video displays a statistic from 2022 BestColleges Research data: 49% of college students regularly deal with sleep loss or excessive need for sleep )

( video introduces moderator Dr. Alana Biggers, plus the 6 discussion participants: theater major Zach; Ph.D. candidate and new mom Sami; pre-med student Serenah; 5th year senior Paige; master’s student Cassandra; and psych major and Cassandra’s son Jermaine )

Dr. Alana Biggers, Healthline medical reviewer, internal medicine physician: Today we’ll be discussing sleep with college and graduate students. Let’s catch some z’s. So raise your hand if you are tired right now.

( everyone except Cassandra raises their hand, Dr. Biggers laughs )

Dr. Biggers: Raise your hand if you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter.

( everyone raises their hand )

Dr. Biggers: Raise your hand if you use your phone in the bed.

( everyone raises their hand )

Dr. Biggers: Raise your hand if you or someone you know has used Adderall to stay awake.

( Zach, Jermaine, Serenah, and Paige raise their hand )

Dr. Biggers: So guys, I saw a lot of hands there. So what obstacles do you and your friends face in maintaining a healthy sleep schedule?

Jermaine, Lincoln University of Missouri psychology major: Scheduling is really, really hard, especially when you have, like, no one to, like, teach you that. So you kind of just come up with your own schedules, you know, when you try to balance your priorities and your wants, because it’s very much easier to be, like, Okay, I’ll just set this to the side for now and do it later. And then later, it becomes later. Sleep becomes, you know, one of those things you can do later.

Sami, Trinity International University Ph.D candidate in international studies: Well for me, I have a baby — three months old — so unexpected interruptions? I don’t know what to do with that. I could schedule my own sleep fine, but now I’m learning how to deal with interruptions.

Dr. Biggers: People telling you, Sleep when baby sleeps. That’s not very practical. [laughter] So…

Sami: That’s a joke, right? [laughter]

Dr. Biggers: [laughing] Yeah, yeah. Feels like it.

Cassandra, Governors State University master’s student in criminal justice:You know, my mom would say, You can sleep when you’re dead. You know. And I’m like, You’re right. [group laughs] So it’s already — it’s always — that you got to get it done. You want to have, be, that winner, that achiever. You want to be the person that hits all their goals, and you’re like, Look, I did 12 things in a day. There’s an S on my chest. I’m super sleepy though.

Serenah, Lake Forest College neuroscience and psychology major: I think in college especially there’s a hustle culture, and pressure to always be doing something productive. I know that when I’m resting, I feel guilty for sitting and watching TV. I feel guilty for, like, nurturing myself and not doing something productive, because [gesturing to Cassandra] Sleep when you’re dead. Like, you’re not supposed, like you’re supposed to work if you want that money. Like here — I feel like when I’ve traveled, I’ve noticed there’s a lot more leisure to life. People are not so concerned about working every hour of the day. Sleep is more of a priority, and here, I think it’s, it’s just not in the culture in general. It’s, it’s like, you should be working, and if you’re not working, you’re not doing enough.

Jermaine: I’ll be the one to admit: I have terrible problems when it comes to being on my phone before I sleep. It’s always just like, I’ll just watch this one TikTok, or, I’ll just watch this one YouTube video, and you just, you can just scroll and watch endlessly. You don’t even care about it — you’re just watching it just to watch it. I have bad problems with my phone when it comes to sleeping.

Serenah: And I think since COVID, we’ve become so accustomed to screens all the time. Like, computer screens, phone screens, tablet screens, everything. We constantly have screens around us, and it becomes a whole cycle that’s kind of just never-ending. And then once your sleep gets interrupted, your entire next day is messed up, and you end up sleeping through all your over-commitments. Like, it’s just, it’s a — it’s a tornado.

Dr. Biggers: The light from the phone and the other screens can actually stimulate your circadian rhythm. So you’re suppressing your melatonin levels, which are natural hormones that actually help you go to sleep. And so when you’re suppressing that, you’re less likely to get the sleep that you need, and it’s messing you up for the next day.

Zach, DePaul University theater major: I just, uh, got blue light glasses to see if that would help. I have no idea. I, I — it’s very fresh, so I don’t know if it’s started to help at all. But like, I try to use those before I go to bed, but I — it doesn’t help at all with, There’s always something I can do. Like, even if it’s like, check my email.

Dr. Biggers: So what the blue light does is actually it stimulates your eyes to think that it’s still daylight, and it suppresses your ability to go to sleep at night. So that’s why it’s important to keep the blue light filtration on and actually just stay away from your screen if you can at night, as well. And another thing that I do also is that I put my phone on grayscale at night to try to deter me from using my phone at night.

Jermaine: Uh, another big thing is anxiety. When you’re really, when you have nothing else but the focus on when you’re really trying to block out everything and just focus on trying to sleep, your mind just runs rampant when you have nothing else to focus on about yourself. And I get hundreds of thoughts just running through my mind, and I can just sit in those thoughts all night. And just, since your brain is putting so much effort into having this mental conversation, it’s not like, Okay. My body’s asleep, my mind is not.

Paige, Illinois State University English major: For me, like, I was diagnosed with ADHD in high school, so I was prescribed Adderall. And when I have to stay awake and write a paper the night before it’s due just because I’ve been putting it off and procrastinating, I’ll take an Adderall, like, right before I, I, like, just chug out this paper. And then next thing you know, I’m taking another Adderall, like, right when I’m supposed to be going to class. And that’s no sleep, plus two Adderall, and it’s just like a really dangerous cycle. Plus that, like, Adderall suppresses appetite, I’m not going to be eating, and then that, like, drains my energy more. And it’s just a very vicious cycle that I can never seem to get a hold of.

Dr. Biggers: So students shouldn’t use Adderall to stay up as a stimulant. If you do have a diagnosis of ADHD, then you should use it as prescribed. But it shouldn’t be in place of you getting your regular sleep at night.

Cassandra: So for me, I work in corrections, and so my schedule is not the best schedule for sleep. [Dr. Biggers saying, Wow.] And so your body is conditioned to not sleeping. So I know from my body I’ve adapted to no sleep. However, you start slowly having shorter and shorter temperament [Sami agreeing, Oh, yeah.], from the sleep. So I’m up, and I’m awake, but I’m like, [shouting] What?! What did you say?! Leave me alone! Alright, get to the corner. Alright, let’s go, it’s roll call.

Sami: I was just gonna say, um, because now I’m going through sleep deprivation with the baby. I am functional, right? She’s alive. [group laughter] But you know, my heart’s not alive, you know? I want to love her, I want to show her all my smiles. But I can’t. I get frustrated, you know, I snap at my husband.

Jermaine: Um, what would you say, like, the effects of, uh, sleep deprivation would be? Like, how would that affect us as students specifically?

Dr. Biggers: So sleep deprivation actually has many effects on people, and you guys have mentioned many of them. You are more irritable. You lose your concentration, so actually it can affect your grades, it can affect your ability to work out, and then your physical health deteriorates over time. They even say if you lose, like, 24 hours of sleep, it’s the equivalent of you drinking high amounts of alcohol. And sleep deprivation can suppress your immune system, so over time, it can make students sicker. And that is why students need to prioritize their sleep.

Paige: I drink obscene amounts of coffee. Just absolutely all the time. I forget that water is the thing that you’re supposed to drink more of. I jitter, like, all the time. Like I’ll be writing my name and you’ll see, like, as I’m writing, like, my hand is moving. And if I don’t have my coffee, I’m cranky, and I’m tired. Like, I don’t want to admit it, but I’m addicted to it.

[group laughter]

Cassandra: So one of the things that, um — I found myself doing to stay awake and to, to stay, you know, crisp and sharp was to consume energy drinks. And it works: you’re just, you’re up, you’re like, Oh yeah, that’s just exactly what I need. But then the crash would be tremendous. And so you’ll be up, and then when you come down, it was like, boom. And so what do you do? You grab another energy drink, right? And then you have, you go from the boost to the can. And then you go from the can to the jumbo can.

Sami: When I was an undergrad, I had finals week to fight against. Pulled two days of all-nighter, how do I do it? You know, six packs of energy drinks. Never doing that again. I finished the work, I did well on my final exam. Came back — crashed on my bed. On that evening, I was jittery and I felt horrible. I was scared actually, because my heart was beating so fast, I couldn’t breathe. Um, I wasn’t sure if I had to go to the ER.

Dr. Biggers: So what you both are talking about, using caffeine to stay awake — now, you like to drink coffee, you like to drink energy drinks — but they both have caffeine in them. Caffeine does help you stay awake, especially when you’re pulling assignments or you need to go to work, etc. Uh, but also it can stop you from going to sleep at night, too. So it’s okay to have caffeine, there’s nothing wrong with that. But I wouldn’t push it where you’re drinking six drinks a day. Um, I would — and I would definitely stay away from caffeine at least four hours before going to bed.

Paige: So over last summer, for four months straight I was having a bottle of wine a night. I gained, like, 30 pounds. It was not fun. But it was, like, the only way I feel like I could come down from, like, this coffee high all the time. It was like, Okay, well I need something to, like, bring me down. What else am I going to do? And so I’d have, like, one glass, and I’m like, Oh, well, why not have another? You know? And then it’s another, and then I was like, Oh my gosh, the bottle’s gone. What am I gonna do? Then it was just, like, this constant cycle. Then I was buying, like, six packs of wine, and it was just this, like — oh my gosh — it was just, like, the only thing that could get me to sleep.

Dr. Biggers: So alcohol is a depressant, and some people try to use it to help them sleep at night. But actually it has the opposite effect on people. So you may be able to initially go to sleep, however it suppresses your ability to make those natural hormones to help you go to sleep over time.

Cassandra: I think school can be more supportive. But I think holistically in school and work is that self-care needs to be more of an emphasis, and it’s not.

Sami: Right. Promoting sleep so that we could be more productive, I think that’s important and probably what’s necessary in school. Because I was losing sleep or I was putting aside sleep — with moving, with marriage, and all of that — and getting deadlines met, I got sick, really bad. I had to drop classes. Um, it pulled me back even slower. Professors don’t have to, you know, be mean about it, but now it’s on us. I feel bad telling them, Hey, I cannot do this because I didn’t sleep. You know?

Cassandra: Right.

Jermaine: There’s a shame to it.

Sami: Right, there’s huge shame.

Cassandra: Yeah, it’s like, like a lazy tag. Like, [imitating an angry professor] Oh, you, you want to sleep? You lazy. [group agreeing] And it’s like, No, I just want to go to sleep! [again imitating a professor] Oh, we don’t care. Just get your paper done. So it needs to be more normalized, and not categorized or some type of stigma associated with you resting.

Zach: So, like, what are some tips for students to get more or better sleep?

Dr. Biggers: I mean, first I would say, you know, make sleep a priority. [laughing] Um, and I know that’s hard, especially with the multiple deadlines and the assignments that are due, or being a mom, or, you know, playing sports or whatever that you’re into, or even your creative space. But, um, I would say make it a priority to make sure that I’m, I’m getting more sleep. I would say definitely caffeine, limiting caffeine as much as you possibly can, and at least I would say probably two to four hours before going to bed not having caffeine. If you have a noisy roommate or, you know, sleep partner, ear plugs are really good, white noise — [gesturing to Sami] I’m sure you know about white noise, too, with the, with having a young child — making sure that you’re also eating good foods, and, you know, exercise. Not right before you go to sleep because that again can stimulate you, but if you’re exercising throughout the week that helps with your sleep, too.

Zach: [Zach inadvertently yawns, laughs] That’s funny.

[group laughter]

Dr. Biggers: Thank you all for this discussion. It was great to hear all of the issues that you all are facing. So, you know — let’s go take a nap.

[group laughter, cheering]

( video recaps Dr. Biggers’ sleep tips for college students: 1) Go off color. Try blue light glasses for screentime and switch your phone to grayscale at night; 2) Drink responsibly. Lay off caffeine and alcohol for at least 4 hours before bed; 3) Just chill. Daytime workouts are great, but limit exercise 2 hours before bed; 4) Be the cat. Take naps before 3pm and limit naptime to 20 minutes; 5) Prioritize. Sleep deprivation affects productivity, mood, and health. Create a healthy sleep schedule and stick with it. )

Dr. Biggers: I’m Dr. Alana Biggers, and this has been a co-production between Healthline and BestColleges. For more videos on these topics, click here. [points to video linked in the top left corner of the screen on YouTube]