The Eight Hour Sleep Challenge During Final Exams Week.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Educational Psychology
• Sleep Science

Background:

• Students often prioritize studying over sleep, leading to insufficient sleep duration during critical academic periods like final exams.
• Despite awareness of sleep's importance for learning, a significant gap exists between student knowledge and actual sleep behaviors.
• Fewer than 10% of students report sleeping eight hours before final exams, highlighting a widespread issue.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the feasibility of students maintaining an average of eight hours of sleep during final exams week.
• To assess the impact of achieving optimal sleep duration on academic performance in undergraduate students.
• To determine if an intervention encouraging adequate sleep can bridge the knowledge-behavior gap in student sleep habits.

Main Methods:

• Utilized actigraphy for objective monitoring of sleep/wake patterns in undergraduate students enrolled in two sleep-related courses.
• Implemented an 'Eight Hour Sleep Challenge' offering extra credit for students averaging ≥8.0 hours of sleep during finals week.
• Compared sleep data of participating students with baseline and control group data, and analyzed final exam performance based on sleep duration.

Main Results:

• Students participating in the challenge averaged 8.5 hours of sleep, with 17 out of 24 succeeding in the ≥8.0 hours goal.
• Short sleep (≤6.9 hours) significantly decreased to 11% of nights among challenge participants, compared to baseline (51%) and control (65%).
• Students achieving ≥8.0 hours of sleep demonstrated better final exam performance than those sleeping less, even when controlling for prior academic achievement.

Conclusions:

• The 'Eight Hour Sleep Challenge' demonstrates that many students can maintain optimal sleep duration during demanding academic periods.
• Achieving adequate sleep does not negatively impact, and may even enhance, academic performance on final exams.
• Interventions promoting sufficient sleep are effective in improving student sleep behaviors and academic outcomes, suggesting a viable strategy for educational institutions.