The Idea of Better Sleep Quality and Duration Among College Students

“College students” and “restful sleep” are two phrases that have an almost oxymoron-like quality. However, those two phrases were not always at odds with each other. At the turn of the last century, American adults—and presumably students—averaged more than an hour of sleep more than adults today, and research in the past couple of decades shows that college students are rarely getting adequate sleep (Buboltz et al., 2001). My journal club group asked the question of why college students are getting less and less sleep, in terms of duration and quality, and what college students could do to promote better sleep quality and duration.

College students, more so than the rest of the adult population, face lower-quality sleep, and sleep less often. Besides the obvious answer of time spent for homework, studying, and the allure of the college social life instead of sleep, college students also have one important habit that harm sleep quality—the use of electronic devices, which is only increasing—a behavior that I will focus on. For college students, electronics are almost as essential as water, and has absorbed communicating with peers and faculty, along with studying and doing homework, into its domain. However, this practice actually severely harms sleep. The short-wavelength “blue” light emitted from screens, through the suppression of melatonin—a hormone that induces sleepiness—pushes back the endogenous circadian pacemaker—our bodies’ biological clock—increasing the time it takes to fall asleep (Chang et al., 2015). With already less time to sleep, increased time in falling asleep decreases time in NREM3 and REM sleep, sleep stages that repair and enhance the body physically and mentally, respectively.

In fact, the decrease of quality and duration of sleep from the “blue light” emitted by electronic devices also affects the immune system, making college students more susceptible to sick days, valuable time lost that could have been used for studying. By interfering with the process of falling asleep, and sleeplessness, the habitual use of electronic devices—by definition— produces an effect similar to insomnia, which has been shown to negatively affect the immune system. Lack of sleep has been linked with lower natural killer (NK) cell activity, and lower percentage of T lymphocytes (Irwin et al., 2003). Combined with less sleep, an immune system functioning at less-than-optimal conditions creates a vicious cycle that is, the “sleep-deprived college student.”

There are two ways in which “blue light” emitted by electronics and its induced sleeplessness create a vicious cycle of lack of sleep among college students. The first path, in which sleeplessness caused by habitual usage of electronic devices before bed negatively affects the immune system (Irwin et al., 2003) by making it harder to fall asleep—similar to insomnia—increases the chances a college student would fall sick. Taking days off from class and studying only increases the workload after recovery, lessening the time a college student has to sleep, causing the cycle of lack of sleep to repeat itself. Another way sleeplessness induced by habitual use of electronic devices is by impairing learning and memory. Quality sleep—especially during the REM stage—helps the brain consolidate memories and process new information (Stickgold & Walker, 2005). By decreasing the quality of sleep, habitual use of electronics decreases learning efficiency, which would cause a college student to spend even more time studying in order to understand and master material, which in turn cuts into time for sleep.

However, even with the increase of electronic use, and its negative effects on learning and health, and promoting a vicious cycle, there are ways for college student to gain better sleep. Gaining better sleep would boost the immune system, maximizing the amount of time available for productive activity, and increase the efficiency of learning, can promote a “virtuous cycle” of sleeping well and performing better academically and becoming healthier. While electronics are indispensable for college students, the good news is that only electronic use in the time period before bedtime affects sleep by delaying the circadian rhythm (Chang et al., 2015). This finding means that college students would, thankfully, not have to abandon electronics entirely. One solution is to do work that does not require a computer before going to bed. Reading textbooks and doing homework on reflected light has a much lower impact on the circadian rhythm, as it emits less “blue light” which suppresses melatonin secretion (Chang et al., 2015). While shifting the light emitted from screens to a warmer hue—such as what the Night Shift mode does on iOS and macOS devices—is supposed to reduce the impact on the circadian rhythm, and has anecdotal evidence (Ryan, 2016), from a physics point of view, the wavelength of light emitted can only be shifted in a limited manner before the colors on a screen completely change. A blue color on a screen still emits “blue light,” just on the lower end of the wavelength spectrum. There is only so much shifting hues could do to reduce “blue light.” With this knowledge, the first method of reading material from reflected light should be a better, and proven option.

While electronics inducing sleeplessness, affecting the immune system and learning can create a vicious cycle, refraining from electronic use before bedtime, will increase sleep quality, and create a virtuous cycle of good sleep, health, and learning.