Performance relies on a good night’s rest
By Cristina Chang
Sept. 23, 2010 2:27 a.m.
Last spring, Matthew Abularach averaged about six hours of sleep per day during the quarter, often going to bed around 2 or 3 a.m.
“Generally, you feel the heavy eyelids and want to sit down and do nothing,” said Abularach, a third-year political science student.
To stay awake, he would often get coffee at Bruin Café, surround himself with other people and go on Facebook, a habit that pushed him further behind in his work, he said.
Abularach said his weekly schedule often prevented him from getting any more sleep. He would spend 15 hours a week working at Café 1919, then another 12 hours a week on extracurricular activities. On top of his academics and work schedule, he said he also tried to make time to visit friends.
“I sometimes feel like the Energizer bunny. Even when I’m down, I’m going, going, going,” he said. “But the exhaustion would carry on with me the next day.”
The hours of sleep each person requires may differ, said Kathleen Lambird, a staff psychologist at UCLA Counseling and Psychological Services. Generally, a first-year student aged 17 or 18 will need about 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night, but as they get older they may require between seven and nine hours, she said.
“Something I tell students, if you take one hour of sleep to study more, you don’t get that full hour back,” she said.
“Because you’re working less efficiently (the next day), it’s not a one-to-one equivalent.”
To maximize their sleeping hours, Lambird advises students to stop engaging in stressful activities, like studying or going on the computer, at least 30 minutes before they go to bed. She added that students should instead use that time to relax and wind down, as it is not realistic to hop into bed expecting to fall asleep after working because the body still needs to decelerate.
According to Lambird, students should not do anything in bed except sleep.
“The more time you spend in bed studying something difficult or stressful, the more the brain associates being in bed with working and stress instead of for sleep,” she said.
When it comes to caffeine consumption, Lambird said caffeine use later in the day, primarily after 2 p.m. can get students into a vicious cycle, where they lose sleep at night and use caffeine the next day to keep awake.
Lambird suggested thinking of sleep in the same way students think of exercising and eating healthy.
“It’s difficult to do on a regular basis, but it’s just as important to your health,” she said.
Alon Avidan, associate director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center, said he agreed students require about eight hours of sleep at night but conceded that the average student receives about five to six hours of sleep a night instead.
According to Avidan, students are less likely to get enough sleep at night because of factors like noise and caffeine usage, but the number one reason is self-imposed sleep deprivation.
He also said students perform better if they get a good night’s rest than if they pull an all-nighter.
“Our ability to retrieve memory depends on getting a good amount of sleep,” he said. “During the day, when (students who pull all-nighters) have to perform, they may have difficulty retrieving information and getting good test results.”
Avidian added that sleeping in on the weekends is one of the worst ways to make up for a sleep deficit, as it interferes with the person’s circadian rhythm, which manages the sleep cycle. He advised students to stick to the same sleeping schedule every day.
“Sleep is not something like you sleep six hours one night and two hours later (in the day) and say you slept for eight hours.
You need it all in one night,” he said.
In order to teach students these new sleeping behaviors, Lambird also runs the workshop The Art of Sleeping and the support group Say Goodnight to Insomnia.
Her hour-long workshop, which is offered three to four times each quarter, discusses different strategies for students to get enough sleep at night.
The support group, which is offered two times each quarter, discusses topics ranging from stress-producing thoughts in sleep to sleep hygiene. Students are also expected to keep a sleep diary and make a commitment to changes they make in their sleeping schedules.
“(In a support group,) you’re with peers who get it, where you don’t feel like you’re the only person struggling with this problem,” Lambird said. “And I think students really appreciate that.”
She said many of her students are able to fall asleep more easily following the workshop, and while they may still have occasional sleep problems, they are not as anxious as before.
