One in four students indicates that lack of sleep has impacted their academic performance in a negative way, such as lower grades and missed papers or project deadlines. Some students rely on staying up most of the night to study, but pulling an all-nighter and cramming at the last minute can actually be counterproductive. The very qualities you need to maximize in order to do well academically, such as memory recall, concentration, and alertness, are decreased when you are sleep deprived. Research has shown that students who get six or fewer hours of sleep have a lower GPA than those who get eight hours or more.

During sleep, the brain organizes, sorts, and stores what you have learned and experienced that day, making it easier to recall at a later time. Sleep also helps you weed out irrelevant information and helps you make connections between your memory and information you learned that day, even if you have not made those connections while awake. If you study a little every day, you can use this natural process of sleep to gain a better understanding of the material and to retain information more efficiently.

Research has found that for students sleep consistency appears to be just as important as sleep duration and quality when it comes to academic performance. What this indicates is that getting a good night’s rest the night before an exam is not enough; the week leading up to the exam is just as important. Consistency is key!