Pressured to succeed, college students put sleep on the back burner

It’s 2:46 a.m.

My head is throbbing a bit. My hands are shaking, partly because it’s cold in the library and partly from the caffeine pumping through my system. My neck is stiff from craning over my computer for the past 15 hours or so.

As I type, I feel my shoulders rise slightly. I try to lower them back down to a neutral position, but it’s hard to relax when it’s Sunday, and I can’t start my paper that’s due Tuesday because I’m working on other homework.

The bottom line: I should be asleep.

But I have one more assignment to do, one more online lecture to watch and readings I’m probably going to skip.

Part of my problem is procrastination, but another part is simply having too much to do. The day prior I had spent at least six hours reading before having a meltdown about not being productive enough.

While my time management skills need improvement, it’s hard to get consistent sleep when you’re an editor for the Badger Herald newspaper, an online associate for your class magazine, an intern at University Communications, a volunteer at a philosophy education program, a researcher reading for a senior honors thesis and a student at UW–Madison.

But it’s hard to get a job if you don’t stand out from the crowd of recent graduates who also deprive themselves of sleep to succeed.

While college has always been a difficult time to get adequate sleep, in today’s age, the stakes are higher. More jobs are requiring more prestigious credentials. Graduates are facing more student loan debt. More students are adding more career-readying experiences to their résumés, increasing competition within the work force. Today’s students, in turn, have to do more in less time, leaving little time for sleep.

What many students don’t realize, however, is sleep deprivation has serious health ramifications. Some even say skipping sleep impacts every organ in the body.

According to the spring 2015 National College Health Assessment survey, which contains the most recent data on UW–Madison student health, 49.5 percent of students rated academics as “traumatic” or “very difficult to handle.” At the time of the survey, 85 percent of students reported not getting enough sleep to feel rested in the morning 2 to 4 days that past week.

As the custodians make their rounds that Sunday at 3:55 a.m., there are more than 70 students in College Library with me — every one of them awake.

Sleep is the first thing to go

For UW–Madison senior Philip Rudnitzky, a journalism major with a focus in strategic communication and reporting, these pressures mean working 20 hours a week at an unpaid internship and 30 to 40 hours a week at two bars to pay for rent and food — both while taking 14 credits. All of these things are “pretty much required,” Rudnitzky says. He needs his job to pay his bills, credits to earn his degree and an internship so he can compete against others applying for jobs in the entertainment industry.

“If I didn’t do this internship, the problem would be if I applied … for an entertainment job, they would ask me why I haven’t been working in the industry for an entire year,” Rudnitzky says. “That would make me less competitive than anybody else who did have an internship.”

But while Rudnitzky prepares for his career, he loses out on sleep. He often doesn’t get back from his job helping bartenders at Red Rock Saloon or Chasers until after 11 p.m., sometimes even 5 a.m. After his shift, he gets a free drink. While most employees choose alcohol, Rudnitzky takes a Red Bull to power him through the night. Within the first month of school, he had already pulled an all-nighter.

These problems are not exclusive to a specific major or area of study; they pervade across campus.

Last spring semester, UW–Madison senior Kaitlyn Gabardi, who is majoring in biomedical engineering, was frequently overwhelmed.

With 19 credits and positions as a teaching assistant and a researcher in an engineering lab, Gabardi’s days started at 7 a.m. and sometimes didn’t end until 9 p.m. — and that didn’t include homework. That semester, Gabardi pulled a total of three all-nighters and was frequently sleep deprived. On bad weeks, she felt “weak” and “groggy,” especially when she tried to go for runs. While she never fell asleep in classes, she got headaches and “the squinty eyes where it almost hurts to open your eyes.”

As Gabardi spent her nights last semester in 6 to 9 p.m. labs, UW–Madison junior Mike Rores, who is double majoring in math and theater, was in rehearsals for the Department of Theatre and Drama’s two plays. The rehearsals ran Monday through Friday, 6 to 10:30 p.m. Over the course of the semester, there was only about one month where Rores did not have rehearsals.

“While you’re rehearsing, there’s a good two months of just no time,” Rores says. “Sleep is kind of one of the first things that goes.”

During this time, Rores would often only get four hours of sleep and almost missed rent one month because he couldn’t work enough hours. This semester, when Rores is not in a play, it’s still hard for him to fit everything in and take care of himself the way he should.

Student sleep issues at College Library

Pamela O’Donnell, communications librarian at College Library, says from what she observes, students seem to think it’s fine to skip out on sleep and power through the day.

“I think there is this expectation that students can, with the help of technology and caffeine, just kind of continue on through everything,” she says.

Over the years, the student mindset has shifted toward making sleep less of a priority. In 2003, College Library changed its hours to be open 24 hours, five days a week, to fulfill student demands.

Around finals time, students have brought sleeping bags, pillows, changes of clothes, holiday decorations and a waffle maker into the library. O’Donnell says she gets the sense that students have “moved into the library.” She also frequently receives requests for beds and nap stations.

“We’re here so that they have a safe space to do the work that they need to do, but … we want people to take care of themselves,” she says.

‘No substitute for sleep’

While inadequate sleep is common among students, experts say sleep deprivation leads to a host of negative consequences for college students and society as a whole.

Dr. Cami Matthews, a UW Health pediatric sleep physician, says sleep deprivation can cause headaches, memory issues, lack of awareness, body aches, stomach aches, increased susceptibility to illness, concentration problems, mood differences and worsened symptoms of depression. More long-term issues can include symptoms of insomnia, hormone disruption and weight gain.

Rob Sepich, student relations manager at University Health Services (UHS), says issues start to arise when people get less than seven hours of sleep. Sleeping too much — more than nine hours — can also lead to similar problems.

“Over the long haul, sleep deprivation is linked to so many kinds of health problems,” Sepich says. “Some sleep researchers say there’s not an organ system in the body that’s not affected by lack of sleep.”

Sleep is also the only time our mind engages in “neural pruning,” the process by which we forget about things we don’t need and create new neural associations for information we do need. Sepich says this is why pulling an all-nighter before an exam can backfire.

But while staying awake all night is unhealthy and often ineffective, Matthews says a consistent lack of sleep or falling out of a sleep rhythm can be worse.

For instance, when Rudnitzky averages six hours of sleep a night, it’s not consistent.  

“It’s like eight hours here, five hours there, 11 hours catch up, all-nighter,” he says.

Matthews says even if you get seven or eight hours of sleep a night, you might feel even more sleep deprived if that sleep is out of your circadian rhythm. When you wake up at different times during the week, it’s like flying back and forth between time zones.

“There’s probably no substitute for sleep,” Matthews says. “I think a lot of people … try to get by on less sleep, but having sleep is a need, just like eating.”

Increased demands lead to higher stress

Some people think the lack of sleep in today’s college students is closely tied to increased academic, career and money-related pressures.

Sepich says in the 24 years he has worked at UHS, students have been sleeping less and less and becoming more and more anxious. In the past three or four years, Sepich says students have started to make efforts to correct this, but the pressure still remains. Many students are faced with tough competition when they graduate, causing them to load activities into their schedule.

“When the economy was really strong people thought, ‘I’ll study hard, maybe get involved in a student organization, and I’ll get a decent job,’” Sepich says. “Over time, when the economy got much more challenging, you were never prepared enough. Your grades were never high enough, there’s always another organization to join … and, you know, maybe a job — but not just a job to earn money, a job that looks really good on your resume.”

In addition, Noel Radomski, managing director and associate researcher of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education, says employers are engaging in “credential creep,” gradually requiring more credentials for the same jobs.

Fifth-year senior Cal Kirley, a mechanical engineering major, says he often sees evidence of these pressures pop up in daily conversations. It’s common for students to make small talk about how little sleep they get, framing sleep deprivation as a competition.

“Honestly, I think people use [how little sleep they get] as a bragging point,” Kirley says. “It’s kind of a mark on either how hard they’re working or all the stuff they have going on.”

More than 40 years ago, college students still pulled all-nighters and got little sleep, but it wasn’t a topic of normal conversation. UW–Madison alumnus Andy Rensink says when he went to school here in the ’70s, sleep deprivation coalesced around finals time, not the whole semester. It also wasn’t something to brag about.

Part of the problem for today’s students might be that the cost of attending college has been rising, Radomski says. During the recession, more college costs shifted from taxpayers to students and parents. At the same time, overall costs have gone up.

From the 2007-08 school year to the 2016-17 school year, yearly tuition for undergraduate in-state students at UW–Madison rose 46 percent, according to university data. For out-of-state students, it rose 53 percent. Since 1985 — when Radomski says yearly in-state tuition was only $1,250 — tuition has risen 740 percent.

Radomski says these higher costs lead to a “vicious cycle,” especially for low-income students. When college costs are higher, low-income students often have to take on jobs to help pay for school. Radomski says this can lead to less sleep, more stress and even mental health issues, making it harder for these students to handle college, let alone get a job afterward.

“When you start looking at issues with students as it relates to stress [and] mental health, it’s disproportionately affecting low-income students,” Radomski says.

For instance, much of Rores’ and Rudnitzky’s stress and sleep deprivation stems from needing to pay for their own rent and food, not from extracurricular activities.

In contrast, Gabardi loads up her schedule and loses sleep because of things she loves.

If Gabardi had to work solely for money, she says she wouldn’t do it.

“If I didn’t enjoy it, I definitely would be like, ‘This isn’t worth it,’” Garbadi says.

But Rores and Rudnitzky still do things they enjoy. Rores does theater because he feels he is a natural performer and hopes he can make it in the entertainment industry. Rudnitzky makes time for music and enjoys his internship, even if it is unpaid.

“Everybody has different challenges, different people start at different levels,” Rudnitzky says. “Sure I have it hard that I have a job, but other people have it a lot worse than me.”

Beyond higher education: ‘A sleep-deprived culture’

Still, other causes contribute to sleep deprivation, and lack of sleep is not merely a college problem.

For the past 30 years, the amount of sleep Americans get has been on the decline. In 1998, 12 percent of people were sleeping fewer than six hours a night, but in 2009, that percentage rose to 20 percent, according to CNN.

“Typically, nationally, people keep getting less and less sleep and keep just trying to function to the best of their ability on what most experts call ‘a sleep-deprived culture,’” Sepich says.

Matthews says part of the problem is an increase in technology in the bedroom. According to Online Psychology Degree, 95 percent of people browse the web, text or watch TV before going to sleep. With each added electronic device in the room, more sleep is lost, Matthews says. This is partly because of the light emitted from each electronic device. Light suppresses melatonin, a chemical we produce to help us sleep. And because these devices don’t turn off, our mind is often still engaged with them, she says.

Sepich says people generally have trouble disengaging from the day because technology is always nearby.

“There’s always something else you could be doing, and that creates an awful lot of pressure on your shoulders to say, ‘I’m done for the day,’” Sepich says.

Similar to how college students brag about their sleep deprivation, Sepich says many Americans wear sleep deprivation as “a badge of honor.”

“We mistake lack of sleep for accomplishment,” Sepich says.

But the truth is, less sleep does not equate to more productivity for college students, nor for the rest of the U.S. Though there are some people who can run on little sleep, Sepich says for most, sleep deprivation means getting less done in more time. He hopes there will be a shift in attitudes toward sleep — both on college campuses and in the nation as a whole.

“When you start sacrificing [sleep], everything falls apart,” Sepich says. “The earlier we can learn to make it a high enough priority, the more successful we will be.”

Emily is a senior majoring in journalism and philosophy. She is currently an intern at University Communications, where she writes news stories and multimedia pieces about campus.

Most of her free time, however, is spent working for The Badger Herald newspaper. She has held positions as a reporter, state news associate editor, print news editor, marketing strategist, and is currently a voting member of the Board of Directors and the features editor.

When not working on journalism-related things, Emily spends time volunteering in a new campus organization called Madison Public Philosophy. She teaches philosophy to grade-school kids at the Salvation Army and helps forge other partnerships to bring philosophy to the community. Emily is also currently working on a senior honors thesis about the meaning of life. In the future, she hopes to become either a magazine writer, TV news reporter or lawyer.