EFFECTS OF SLEEP AND REST ON THE MINDS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS
Written in October 2018, by Sabrina Sainte
Sleep is one of the basic human needs necessary to maintaining physical, as well as mental health. Though getting rest and sleep are incredibly important, they are often the most overlooked aspects of health in our achievement- and productivity-focused culture.
Neurologists have produced bodies of research showing that while people rest and sleep, there are important processes occurring in specific parts of the brain that dictate how we connect information together to complete certain tasks. Particularly in developing adults, these neural processes affect how we interpret the world around us and understand ourselves as a part of it. Therefore, sleep-deprivation and rest-deprivation are problematic for college students since inadequate sleep and downtime disrupt these major cerebral processes, ultimately impede the developing mind’s ability to receive information in a useful manner, and diminish one’s ability to think analytically and engage in a deeper thought.
Sleep is key to a healthy, functioning mind since neural events, like electric signaling, occur in the brain before and after someone falls asleep or daydreams as a way to help with information processing and memory formation. As outlined in neuroscientist Marcus E. Raichle’s “The Brain’s Dark Energy”, specific regions along the middle brain known as the “default mode network” trigger slow, cortical potentials firing in the brain (10). This activity “coordinate[s] access… to the vast storehouse of memories and other information needed for survival in a complex, ever changing world”, or initiates the brain’s vital tasks when the mind is not preoccupied on solving a problem or completing a task at a given time (10). When the mind’s focus is free from any external goals, the default mode network works to make arrangements within itself, so to speak, before it has to bring itself to attending to outside needs again. Daily educational demands keep college students’ minds busy with learning course materials from lectures, projects, exams, and other assignments that require significant cognitive skill and engagement. Generally, part of being a capable student is being able to retain one’s studies and demonstrate specific knowledge, whether by testing high marks on exams in the classroom or directly applying gained skills to appropriate real-life settings. A study in Ferris Jabr’s article “Why Your Brain Needs More Downtime” concluded that epilepsy patients better recalled pictures shown in a previous memory test after experiencing pulses, during the rhinal cortex of the brain, before or after sleeping (3). The patients’ apparent improvement in short-term memory retrieval shows that the brain depends on being in its daydream state to allow the natural activity of the default mode network which reinforces or build entirely new connections between thoughts and memories stored in the mind. Consistently sleeping well evidently can play a major role in a student’s ability to process the information he or she learns over time, due to the intrinsic brain activity at play before and after sleeping. Therefore, a sleep-deprived college student will not effectively learn and make meaningful connections from his or her educational studies, simply because the mind requires sleep-dependent neural events to prepare itself for regulating and synthesizing problem-solving thoughts during activities where one’s full attention is actually needed.
Moreover, having enough downtime prepares the mind to be productive during more focused tasks, since the mind has a limit for intaking information without having had a proper break before getting overwhelmed. A case in point is an experiment in Ferris Jabr’s article which involved two separate test groups of employees from a consulting company, who either were given one day off from or allowed to dedicate time to themselves after work, and reported that the added vacation and relaxation times “consistently replenished their willingness and ability to work, which made them more productive overall,” (4). It is quite common for college students to overextend themselves to the point of mental exhaustion and fatigue in the name of increasing learning and school productivity, especially through information cramming and all-nighters. Understanding the benefits of resting the mind to better process the sensory and intellectual information one gathers throughout the day, the students who cannot manage their time to recuperate might struggle the most with handling educational responsibilities in the long-term. Sleep-deprived students may also compromise their mental rest in a way that eventually sabotages their determined efforts at academic achievement. Benefits of mindfulness training also detailed in Jabr’s article show that implementing a brief routine of meditation, where one sets aside a few minutes to relax and enter a state of deep introspection, further prove that even short periods of rest are sufficient to keeping the mind sharp and in shape (6). Students with heavier course loads may find themselves able to think clearer and focus longer with regularly practicing quick mindfulness exercises, or at least incorporating short breaks between studying and completing schoolwork. While discussing a Harvard course on the importance of quality sleep, Globe writer Laura Krantz mentions that while some colleges still push students to under-sleep and overwork “seem to glorify sleeplessness…. to give students motivation and focus, it’s actually counterproductive and can also affect their other classes” (19). Since the mind is most productive only after one ceases to use cognitive energy on extraneous demands and focus it inwards, people’s brains need some steady form of mental relaxation to absorb information in a truly constructive way. Colleges cannot reasonably expect students to function well with a lack of mental rest, since an exhausted mind can easily be bogged down with information in a way that impedes learning and application of academic work.
Furthermore, the maturing minds of young people require rest and reflection to develop the ability to think critically from both a task-positive and task-negative, or a goal-focused perspective and pensive point of view, while they use both modes of thinking throughout adulthood. An article by Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Joanna A. Christodoulou, and Vanessa Singh claims that educational and brain function research which connect the activity of the default mode network in young children to that of adults “suggest the possibility that inadequate opportunity … to quietly reflect and to daydream may have negative consequences—both for social-emotional well-being and for their ability to attend well to tasks,” (12). The longer that younger college students can rest and strengthen the default mode network during their formative young adult years, the greater their likelihood to develop solid psycho-social skills and cognitive skills for preforming mentally-engaging tasks. For many students, the purpose of going to college and getting an education is to cultivate certain skills for careers or jobs with specific requirements. Well-taught college students must be able to properly rationalize information, before applying solutions to problems and fulfilling the roles their job positions might entail. Patience with developing the task-positive mind during rest helps one’s task-negative and task-positive thinking work well together in the long-term, as Immordino-Yang, Christodoulou, and Singh explain that “effortful internal focus is potentially important for making meaning of new information and for distilling creative, emotionally relevant connections between complex ideas,” (17). Although the task-negative mind mostly works to conjure deeper thoughts which foster emotional intelligence, identity-construction, and creative thinking, the usefulness of introspection on a maturing mind may spill over into the rational, conscious mind and heighten one’s overall cognitive competency. Being able to switch from a more straight-forward and achievement-driven way of thinking to more theoretical thinking is a much-needed skill for any college student – if not to only succeed academically, but to also be a well-rounded adult capable of both creative and logical reasoning in the real world. Although “the implications of these neural findings for psychological development in naturalistic environments like schools have not been studied,” it is plausible that college students who have gradually neglected their critical sleeping and rest patterns throughout their formative years may slightly compromise their ability to engage in deeper thinking, or focused thought, in the future (14).
Lastly, to engage in constructive internal reflection, it is critical to give one’s mind proper rest from high environmental attentional demands which can stint social- and self-processing over time. While rest simply means taking a break from anything that occupies the task-focused mind in the present, getting rest also means momentarily stepping away from anything trivial, like common distractions, to deeply engage the mind. Jabr explains how important it is to have “… deliberate mental breaks during ‘all the in-between moments’ in an average day… and committing to it in practice” in order to practice being mindful in “our most sophisticated mental abilities,” (6-7). Rest from everyday distractions, like electronics and social media, can help young college students become more self-aware and reflect on the meanings, thoughts, and ideas they may attach to the outside world. Another underlying motive of getting a formal education for many college students, other than for employment, is to come to understand one’s own place in society, or the world at large, and fulfill the role of becoming a valuable and contributing member. Immordino-Yang, Christodoulou, and Singh propose that with the prolonged prioritization of distractions “the somewhat alarming implication, still not directly tested, is that if youths are habitually pulled into the outside world … they may be systematically undermining opportunities to reflect on … longer term implications of social situations and personal values…. and over time might bias identity development toward focusing on concrete or physical abilities, traits, and accomplishments,” (17). Engaging the default mode network of the brain triggers deeper thought that causes people to evaluate the richer connections they may make about the world, and build their own value systems based on having genuine relationships with other people. Neglecting to rest their minds and contemplate their inner selves, along with their own purpose and actions, can mold young college students to think rather superficially about their lives. Habitually engaging in activities that distract the mind away from deeper thinking –without an occasional, meaningful break – can impair college students’ psycho-social development and possibly lessen their potential as dutiful citizens in the world who have impact on the people around them.
In all, failing to get enough sleep and proper rest is potentially damaging to college students since the cerebral processes that happen before sleep, after sleep, and during periods of relaxation allow the mind to process and use information from stimuli taken in throughout the day. On a deeper level, the clear headspace that consistent rest brings makes the mind more capable of complex thoughts, which allow young people to reflect on their inner identities, build their understandings of their connections the world and to others throughout their lives.
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