It should surprise no one that college students are extremely sleep deprived, and they do not get the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night. College is a very stressful time for students, where grades are the biggest priority and such things like sleep are shoved on the side as an afterthought. Although it may be hard to alter you schedule so that you can get an adequate amount of sleep, it has to be done because sleep is more important than college students think.
College students only get an average of 6 hours of sleep a night (1). Considering that that’s the average, it is crazy to think that some students get less than 6 hours of sleep and can still function during the day. For myself personally, I always plan out my nights so that I get at least 6 hours of sleep. I know that if I do not get at least 6 hours of sleep, that I will be tired and unfocused the next day.
College students know that sleep is important, but I think that they do not understand why it is so important. In simple terms sleep allows your brain and mind to recharge itself over night, but what does this actually mean? While you are sleeping your brain is extremely active, which is kind of counterintuitive when you think about sleep. In sleep you have four sleep stages (1-4) and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep at the end of stage 4. As you get further into the sleep stages, the waves become slower with lower frequencies. REM sleep has high frequency waves that actually mimic someone who is awake. The slow wave sleep and REM sleep are the most important sleep stages because that is where you consolidate memories. If you do not get slow wave sleep or REM sleep you are not able to consolidate memories, which essentially means that you will not be able to remember a lot of material that you studied the previous day. In order to consolidate memories, you need at LEAST 6 hours of sleep. So the less sleep you get, the less you are able to recall material from the previous day. Even if you study all night long and get minimal sleep, all that effort studying is lost because of the lack of sleep. If you plan on staying up all night, do NOT go to sleep. I know this is counterintuitive, but if you cannot get at least 6 hours of sleep than all that studying will be worthless because it will not be consolidated. This is why sleep, especially among college students, is extremely essential.
Studies have shown that students who get less sleep have lower GPA’s and perform worse on tests, than those who get more sleep (1). This makes complete sense because sleep’s main function is to consolidate memories so that you are able to recall them. As a college student I know that getting an adequate amount of sleep is easier said than done, but because sleep is so important it is essential that sleep is made one of our priorities. While researching some easy tips on how to maximize sleep as a college student, I came across a couple tips that I agree with.
Reduce caffeine intake (2)
Caffeine usually takes effect 3-4 hours after intake, so that is something to keep in mind when planning out your day. Obviously reduce your coffee intake before bed because it can disupt your sleep
Eat a diet that is rich in vitamin B (2)
Vitamin B helps you to have a restful sleep, as well as helps to reduce fatigue during the day (2).
Plan out your day so that you can plan out an adequate amount of sleep
Having a structured plan of what time you want to be in bed helps to give you an idea of how to structure the rest of your day in terms of work and classes.
The main point: get some sleep and make it a priority to get an adequate amount. Functioning on no sleep is not useful and actually reduces the amount of information that you can remember.
Whitney's Med Blog 
You say not to sleep if you plan on staying up all night — could you elaborate more on that? I’ve found that taking an 30 minute nap periodically throughout an all-nighter has helped me to retain information. My eyes start to cross and I can no longer focus on the information I’m studying. After a brief nap I feel a little more rejuvenated and clear headed. Are there any exceptions to your advice or words of wisdom to offer me?
I actually learned this in my neuroanatomy class. My teacher was talking about how important it is to get your 6-8 hours of sleep per night because that’s the most important time to get memories to consolidate into your long term memory. She said that when students stay up all night to pull an all nighter, they should just continue to stay up and not go to bed because they won’t have the information that they just studied consolidate into their long term memory because they aren’t getting the full 6-8 hours of sleep. So basically it becomes a waste if you were to stay up all night and then go to bed and have those memories not transfer over to your long term memory. As for personal experiences, I always find it helpful to get at least 30 mins-1.5 hours of sleep just so my eyes can rest.
All information in this article are important to know! Be honestly I sleep about 6 hours per day but I still sleepy… It just bring me a question that how can I fell into a deep sleep stage. Sometime I sleep for more 8 hours but the sleep quality is pretty bad and I still feel tired when I wake up. Sometime I sleep for 5 hours but I got deep sleep. Is there any direct relationship between the sleep hours and sleep stages?
This is a great question! This has to do with the amount of time you spend in your sleep stages. If you regularly get a certain amount of sleep per night, your body is used to sleeping that amount of time so your body knows how much time you should be spending in each sleep stage. When you start to change up how much sleep you get, you are also changing your body’s sleep rhythms and they can become out of sync because its used to getting a certain amount of sleep. There apparently is also a phenomenon where you can get a lot of sleep and still be tired. Also if you get a good amount of sleep but you’re still tired, it can be because you are waking up in the middle of a deeper sleep stage rather than waking up when you’re back in stage 1 (a lighter sleep stage). Waking up in a deeper sleep state causes one to feel drowsy and tired when they wake up.