How To Maintain Proper Sleeping Habits in College

All-nighters, midnight deadlines, and socializing until the sun comes up are all experiences you might have during your college career. This is emphasized for international students – who will likely have more on their plate to deal with while acclimating to a new culture in the US

Determining a balance between your active and sleeping hours may be a point of emphasis in college, but you’ll need to achieve good quality sleep to perform at a consistently high level and improve the quality of your health.

How Necessary is Sleep for College Students?

The Center of Disease Control and Prevention indicated that adults between the age of 18 and 60 will need to get at least 7 hours of sleep daily to keep up our health and emotional well-being. However, given the daily unpredictability of college students’ lives, this expectation can feel unattainable at times.

The reality is that 70 to 96% of college students get less than 8 hours per evening, with over half of college students reducing this to under 7 hours on average. Amidst the daily hustle of meeting academic expectations, caring for oneself, and social interactions, it is easy to take sleep for granted or treat it as less important.

So, even though waking up at noon on the weekend after a 6-hour overnight study binge sounds like a rational response, it may be doing less favors to your body than you expect.

What Does Good Sleep Mean?

Sleep affects many different aspects of your daily life. To have a good night’s sleep is to improve abilities like memory, focus, and attention – all crucial for strong academic performance.

Lack of sleep, also referred to as sleep deprivation, can also have adverse effects on your emotional and physical state, usually leading to higher instances of injuries, and making it harder to maintain clear emotional thought and assessing other’s emotions.

Many guides will use quantity of sleep as a guide to its effectiveness, but the reality of college is that going through all-nighters and late evenings can be inevitable sometimes. It is then up to you to piece together a sleep schedule that is to your advantage.

Before thinking of adjusting your sleep schedule outright, see if you can cater your daily schedule to fit your most active hours. Avoiding classes scheduled too early or too late is a good first step in this case.

Once you determine a bedtime that works for you, you will need to cater the other parts of your day around going to bed at that time. Through repetition, you’ll know exactly when to tuck in each day, and with everything checked off your to-do list as well.

Hacking Sleep in College

Maintaining a consistent schedule is a safe bet for sleeping if you have a routine day to day, and the above advice is likely your most solid guide for steady sleep. For those with unpredictable hours or constantly sporadic agendas, you may want to consider some of the following tips:

• For those with problems in their studies, like writing lengthy papers or overcoming massive study guides, consider using openings in your day to take quick power naps, up to 45 minutes at a time. This can help with feeling refreshed quickly.
• Consider socks in bed: by increasing blood flow to the feet, you feel warmer, which helps you fall asleep quicker, and may even lend to better quality of sleep.
• Adversely, a colder room can boost your melatonin (hormone for sleeping) when your body temperature decreases
• Consider noise pollution, or the lack of. Ambient sounds can lull the brain into sleep, while those seeking quiet can use ear plugs to shut out any external sound
• Remove all stimuli nearby – this can mean avoiding scrolling on TikTok and other phone-related activities in bed but can also mean setting aside all studying materials. You can’t have study-related anxiety if there’s nothing around to study.
• Exercising or eating before bed may seem logical – making the body feel tired or full should mean better sleep; however, timing is highly important here. If you choose to work out before sleeping, try to do so at least one hour before your bedtime, to allow your brain and heart rate to settle down.

It’s incredibly easy to take sleep for granted while in college. However, while you shouldn’t let these prime years of your life go by, take a second to rest and put yourself in the best position. Your health will thank you for it, just like it will when you enroll into a dedicated ISO Student Health Insurance plan today!