Sleeping through night and day

Camille McCurry, Editor-In-Chief|February 24, 2021

The pandemic has brought a variety of interesting changes to students’ day-to-day life—some positive, some negative—but it’s undeniable that one of the biggest impacts has been on students’ sleep. The Bull’s Eye surveyed 47 Brahmas on the details of their sleep schedules both before and after the pandemic to see exactly how it has affected their slumber.

Before distance learning, the average student slept from 12:03 a.m. to 6:21 a.m., packing in a total of 6 hours and 17 minutes of sleep each night. While this is far from ideal, students are getting less sleep now that we’re home all day. Now, students rest for a mere 5 hours and 54 minutes on average, and both go to sleep and wake up at later times: From 12:45 a.m. to 6:39 a.m. It makes sense that students are waking up later, considering that they don’t need to commute to campus, but the later bedtime isn’t so easily explained.

One explanation involves the rise in napping among students. The percentage of students who take naps has doubled this year from 29.8 percent to a staggering 62.5 percent—not to mention that the average nap is longer this year, too, having grown from a little over an hour to nearly three. So while students are sleeping less at night, they are getting more rest overall.

So why is it, then, that the majority of students believe the amount of sleep they are getting has been reduced compared to last year? Well, the answer may lie in human biology. Naps can’t actually replace the rest students get at night, and often can interfere with the ability to rest peacefully. Following an afternoon nap, many wake up in the middle of the night, and wake in the morning less rested.

Many students have a different explanation, though: the stress and homework from school this year has increased dramatically, causing them to stay up late in order to finish their work. This creates a cycle of sleep deprivation that’s grown increasingly common as of late, as students take naps to alleviate their sleep deprivation, but are then forced to stay up late in order to get their homework done.

“I am usually not a person to take naps unless I am super tired or sick but during online learning, I have taken more naps in one semester than I have taken… from the start of 6th grade to the end of 8th grade,” sophomore Jocelyn Wang said. “At night I have a hard time sleeping and am overwhelmed with how much homework we get. I don’t fall asleep until it’s around 1 a.m. Then I wake up way too early and can’t go back to sleep at 5 a.m. My teachers say you have to get a good night’s sleep but all I can question is how is that possible over mountains of homework each night?” 

Other students have found that the year has actually been quite beneficial, as they’re able to go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, while also taking shorter naps to boost their concentration in a healthy way.

“[I’ve] got[ten] more sleep because of stay-at-home learning. [I’m] performing better academically because my brain is more awake each day and I have more energy throughout the day,” junior Bobby Zhu said in the survey.