Two Stories on Sleep

The SLEEP 2007 meeting is going on right now, so I have been trying to keep up with sleep-related news.

Here are two important stories:

First, college students who pull lots of all-nighters have lower GPAs:

A common practice among many college students involves "pulling all-nighters", or a single night of total sleep deprivation, a practice associated with lower grade-point averages compared to those who make time for sleep, according to a research abstract that will be presented Wednesday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

"Sleep in college students is generally inadequate, irregular and of poor quality. As sleep quality and quantity decrease, academic performance worsens. The data collected in this study indicate that the use of a single night of total sleep deprivation is not an effective practice for achieving academic goals," said Pamela Thacher, PhD, of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York, who authored the study.

The findings are based on interviews with 111 students at St. Lawrence University.

Pulling all-nighters seemed like such a badge of courage in college, but in hindsight we were just being ridiculous to believe that it would actually improve our performance on the next day's exam.

Second, students in "medical" majors were more likely to have poor sleep and be sleep-deprived:

College students with medical-related majors are more likely to have poorer quality of sleep in comparison to those with a humanities major, according to a research abstract that will be presented Wednesday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

The study, conducted by Aryn Karpinski of West Virginia University, focused on 129 students, with an average age of 19.9, who were categorized based on major: "STEM" (statistics, technology, engineering, math, and medical-related majors) or humanities (i.e., psychology, education). STEM majors comprised 55 percent of the participants and 45 percent were humanities majors. All subjects were administered the self-report Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Epworth Sleepiness Scale.

"Sleepiness and poor sleep quality are prevalent among university students, affecting their academic performance and daytime functioning. This study, which compared sleepiness and sleep quality among undergraduate students whose majors were either medically or humanities-oriented, found that, while there were no differences between STEM and humanities majors' self-reported sleepiness, there were significant differences in their self-reported sleep quality with STEM majors reporting worse global PSQI scores," said Karpinski.

In addition, noted Karpinski, global PSQI scores for the sample indicate poorer quality of sleep compared to the population norms. Sleep deprivation was longer and frequency of sleep medication use was higher in STEM compared to humanities, added Karpinski.

I can't really tell from this release (and the paper isn't out yet) whether they are saying that this is true for all people with technical majors (the STEM group) or just the medical subgroup.

Again, I would argue that this is cultural rather than that the material in technical majors is somehow more taxing. (Having written several long humanities papers in college, I realize that anyone who calls that easy is either 1) doing poorly or 2) much smarter than I am.)

I think it is more that technical majors think that sleep-debt possesses some sort of chic. If the research at the SLEEP meeting is any guide, this is the height of stupidity.

So how 'bout a new policy? Sleep is now cool. All people who get 8 or more hours of sleep a night are now cooler than the rest of us.