Running on empty

Though medical professionals recommend eight hours of sleep per night, abnormal sleep schedules like Acciarito’s sometimes seem to be the norm on campus.

“Here’s how it works,” he explained in an e-mail. “Take two one-hour naps throughout the day, and stay up as late as you can until you fall to your face.”

But sleep experts say that this type of behavior could be harmful to a student’s mental and physical wellbeing.

“Most college students would do better with a sleep plan that allows 8.4 hours of sleep every day with regular pattern,” said Mary Carskadon, the director of Chronobiology and Sleep Research at Bradley Hospital at Brown University. Carskadon explained that irregular sleep cycles can “interfere with circadian timing which affects nearly every body system.”

She cited decreased attentiveness, difficulty concentrating, poor eating and nutritional patterns, risk-taking, depression and impaired immune system functioning as some of the negative effects of irregular sleep schedules.

Reilly Miller ’12 said he and a friend tried implementing a sleep schedule that involved taking a 20-minute nap every three hours.

“I’m not sure how [my friend] found out about [this schedule], but it was more like pop-culture kind of Wikipedia-style research rather than scientific studies,” Miller said. “I had a calendar that had all the times, and my alarm clock had 10 alarms.”

Unfortunately for Miller, it didn’t work. “One of the naps was from 2:00-2:20 a.m., and I’d wake up at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m.,” he said.

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Psychology professor Barry Jacobs said he thought Miller’s attempted schedule was “weird” but said it may be easy to wake up after such a short period.

“A night has 20 percent REM [sleep], and the rest is non-REM sleep,” he explained. “There are different depths, so it’s hardest to wake people after 40 minutes of sleep because they’re in non-REM deep sleep.”

Peter Petrov ’12, who said he pulls two all-nighters per week to finish his physics problem sets, relies on seven to 10 cups of coffee per day to make it through the night.

The benefit of such hyper-caffeination, however, may be diminished by an increased tolerance, Jacobs said.

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“If you want [caffeine] to be a wake-up drug, the most effective way is not to use it in general,” he explained. “Chronic use will render it ineffective.” He added that the placebo effect may make students believe that caffeine is keeping them awake.

At least some students are careful to follow Jacobs’ advice. Jeanette Beebe ’11 said she highly values her rest and sleeps from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. each night.

“I think it’s integral to maintaining a healthy lifestyle,” she explained.

Evan Welch ’12 said he thought he might benefit from going to sleep earlier than his usual bedtime of 3 or 4 a.m.

“I hate calling it a day if I haven’t gotten done everything that I set out to do,” he said, but added, “If you let your work dictate your bedtime too much, you will have a messed-up schedule.”