Sleeping habits take a hit during the third and fourth weeks of term, as the midterm period and deadlines seize the student body — what’s anything but news to students was validated in a study by computer science professor Andrew Campbell, based on data collected in spring 2013.
Campbell’s research, presented last month at a computing conference, assessed the mental health, academic performance and behavioral trends of 48 students studying a range of academic departments using a mobile application called StudentLife.
The data — which also included class attendance, daily physical activity, frequency and duration of conversations and eating habits — revealed trends in student sleep patterns that Campbell said he did not expect.
“I knew that students would occasionally be pulling all-nighters,” he said, “but to see that the average time to get to sleep was somewhere around 2:30 a.m. on average, across 10 weeks, really surprised me.”
This fall, the health promotion and wellness office launched a full pilot of Refresh, a program developed at Stanford University that provides students with information on sleep physiology, mindfulness and Circadian rhythms to help them improve their sleeping habits, alcohol and other drug education program coordinator Caitlin Barthelmes said. Participants are also encouraged to keep a daily sleep log.
The program, which began its initial pilot phase at Dartmouth this spring, currently involves about 20 students who receive weekly informational modules via email, Barthelmes said. Topics addressed include relaxing, balancing sleeping with schoolwork and constructing a restful sleep environment.
Barthelmes said she hopes to eventually operate the Refresh program as a course or organization on Canvas that students may sign into as needed.
The 2014 Dartmouth health survey, she said, was an impetus for beginning the program.
The survey showed that stress, sleep difficulties and anxiety are the most reported factors affecting students’ academic performance. Of 258 students surveyed, 52 percent reported experiencing sleep difficulties in the past year, and 24 percent said that their sleep difficulties had resulted in a lower grade on an exam or project.
Students at Dartmouth sleep about 6.8 hours per night, the survey found. The National Institutes of Health recommends that adults get seven to eight hours of continuous sleep each night, and for teens, nine to 10 hours.
A 2011 study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine showed that the Refresh program is a cost-effective way for students with poor sleep quality to improve their sleep and reduce depressive symptoms.
Kristin Winkle ’18, a participant in the pilot Refresh program, said other students often express pride after pulling all-nighters or working until the early hours of the morning.
“I think sleep is seen as the enemy of fun, or of productivity,” Winkle said, adding that the Refresh program has allowed her to develop healthier sleep patterns by teaching her more about the science of sleep.
Becca Don, a behavioral health consultant at the University of Iowa, said she has seen positive results in students since the university implemented the Refresh program on campus last year.
All participants, she said, reported increased knowledge of healthy sleep habits, and many said they would recommend the program to a friend.
This year, Don said, health officers developed an iPhone app to incorporate the program into students’ busy lifestyles.
Several students interviewed said that the College’ high-achieving culture contributes to a shortage of sleep.
Dustin Ponder ’17 said he has often felt like he needed to sacrifice sleep in favor of work and other obligations, only to “crash” afterward, sleeping for long periods at a time.
“There’s a saying that out of sleep, social life, and academics, you can only pick two,” Ponder said. “I think that’s definitely true here.”
Rob Del Mauro ’18 said that a fear of missing out has caused him to sacrifice sleep in favor of work and socializing.
Sleep, he said, is a “taboo practice” at Dartmouth.
Ke Zhao ’17 said that she is currently trying to improve her sleep consistency, after stress during her freshmen year led to oversleeping on the weekends and feelings of “jet lag” during the week.
“I joke with my roommate that the trade-off for A’s are Z’s,” Zhao said.