Okay, I know that it sounds obvious to make sure you are getting good sleep in grad school, but this week's blog will help you understand why it is so important to sleep well as a grad student.
When I was in grad school, sleep wasn't always something I focused on. Sometimes I'd feel tired and be able to sleep well, other times I'd lay awake at night mulling over something I was trying to resolve in my research or writing.
But as I neared the end of my doctorate, I noticed the quality of my sleep was deteriorating. I was having trouble falling asleep and would often wake up to my alarm and want to turn it off instead of getting up.
I had designated my mornings as dissertation writing time, so if I had a slow start because I was still sleepy or hadn't slept well, it meant I had less time to write.
I started tracking my sleep to get some objective data using a smart watch. I figured out the average amount of time I needed to feel rested each night, turned off all screens by 9pm every night, and got back into the habit of reading before bed to help me. I also found that days I had more physical activity were days that I slept better.
Making these small adjustments helped improve my sleep, and I found that I was able to wake up feeling refreshed and ready to write my dissertation -- or at least make it to campus to sit in front of a computer and hope to start writing!
Now, let's talk about three reasons why paying attention to your sleep is crucial for grad students:
Reason #1 - Better sleep = less stress (?)
A study of 3000 graduate students examined the relation between sleep and stress (Allen et al., 2022).
Guess how many hours the average student got of sleep per night? 6.4 hours of sleep.
Now we all know that averages are just part of the story -- the standard deviation was 1, so that means that 67% of all students in the study got between 5.4 and 7.4 hours of sleep per night.
Where do you fall in that range? For me, I was probably in the higher range because sleep was something I knew I had to prioritize myself, but there were dips especially due to varying circumstances during my doctorate.
But, for the students who got more hours of sleep -- they reported higher sleep quality and less stress than students who slept less.
And I'm not confounding correlation and causation here, but instead want to point out that in general, students who had more better quality sleep had less overall stress than students who slept less.
We also know that grad students have a variety of family and life circumstances that may be affecting their sleep, but I still think this study helps quantify what many of us may have experienced or seen in others during our grad degrees.
So, if you're unsure how you're doing with your sleep, starting off with a simple sleep journal or smartwatch would be a good first step to get your own baseline data.
"Students who got more sleep reported high sleep quality and less stress, cynicism, inefficacy, and exhaustion than students who slept less." ~Allen et al., 2021
Reason #2 - You may be able to avoid burnout
One of the indicators to me that I was nearing burnout in the end phases of my PhD was the low quality of my sleep. I eventually took a 4 month leave of absence and within two weeks my sleep had recalibrated back to the higher quality it had been in the first four years of my PhD.
Hunter & Devine (2016) conducted a mixed-methods student of over 150 doctoral students that aimed to understand emotional exhaustion and intentions to leave academia.
Emotional exhaustion is defined as burnout – when the demands of a job exceed resources and results in depleted emotional energy.
Findings from their study showed that 35% of students reported high levels of emotional exhaustion (e.g., burnout). The doctoral students with higher levels of stress were also more likely to plan on leaving academia.
So, taking care of yourself by watching your sleep could also help you in later phases of your degree that are more demanding (e.g., defences, job searches, etc.) where you need all the energy and emotional resilience you can get.
Findings from Hunter & Devine (2016) show that 35% of doctoral students reported high levels of emotional exhaustion (e.g., burnout).
Reason #3 - It's a low cost way to take care of yourself
One thing that we know for sure is that grad students are usually on a very tight budget. Except for maybe buying a cheaper smartwatch, monitoring your sleep doesn't have many upfront costs but could present some later on costs (e.g., delaying your program, physical or mental health concerns, etc.)
The other aspect to pair with it is to talk to the people around you about sleep. Sometimes grad school can be so isolating that we just assume everyone is experiencing the levels of stress that we are. This is by no means indicating you should try to "one up" other grad students with your struggles -- make sure you share how you are coping as well!
This could look like getting a weekly (virtual or in person) writing group started to share your progress. Or going for a walk during lunch with some peers to check in with each other.
So now what?
What can you do to help prioritize your sleep? What should you do if you are still having trouble sleeping? Often, just increasing your awareness of sleep can be a great first step to figuring out how much stress you are under as a grad student.
Talking to loved ones can be helpful if you are not sure whether the grad school stress is affecting you or not.
Taking that first step toward prioritizing your sleep will pay off in the long run, and potentially help you avoid burnout and be more satisfied with your graduate school experience.
For more ideas and tips, sign up for our free newsletter and check out How To Grad School's The Club, an affordable online membership program to help you reduce stress and succeed in grad school.
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