As a society, we have a strange relationship with sleep. Everyone knows the value of a good night’s shut-eye, yet phrases like “you snooze, you lose” or “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” mean we regularly abuse sleep in the belief it will lead to success.

This can be true of students in the run-up to exams. They tend to revise late into the night, and often into the early morning, in the belief that sacrificing sleep is necessary to ensure they achieve their target grades. The evidence, though, suggests this isn’t true: scrimping on sleep is damaging for multiple reasons, and experts say teachers need to support students to see sense.

It is clear that a lack of sleep is detrimental to those taking exams, says Jason Ellis, professor in psychology at Northumbria University and director of the Northumbria Centre for Sleep Research.

Revise in the morning

“The ability to remember information, attend to information and problem solve suffers if you don’t have enough sleep - and those three things are central to exams,” he explains. “It can be tempting to cram all night and sleep for a short amount of time, but this actually works against you.”

Professor Jim Horne, sleep neurologist and former head of sleep research at Loughborough University, concurs, and adds that any student who does feel the need to do last-minute cramming should do this in the morning before the exam rather than night before.

“You’re far more likely to remember things if you do it early,” he explains. “Late at night when you’re sleepy is pointless, as you won’t remember it the next day, but you’ve a much better chance of memorising things during wakefulness when you first get up.”

Teachers can, of course, give these warnings to their students and leave them to it, but it would be even more useful if they could actually advise students on how best to achieve a proper sleep pattern. To help them, the sleep experts are willing to share some of their secrets.

Maintaining a bedtime routine is essential, says Mary Morrell, professor of sleep and respiratory physiology at Imperial College London. Going to bed at a reasonable hour is one thing, but what you do before bed is also important, she explains.

There is universal agreement that revising right up to the time your head hits the pillow is a bad idea. The advice is to have at least an hour of “downtime” after revising so you can relax before lights out.

“One thing I always say to students is that you have to power down before going to sleep,” says Morrell. “That means trying to have an hour before bed just winding down gradually.”

This period of relaxation should not include the usual suspects of playing computer games or using social media, says Horne.

“These sorts of things can make you too alert, making it harder to get to sleep,” he explains.

Interestingly, Morrell adds that you can put physical exercise into this category, too. You may think that a quick workout pre-bedtime is perfect to destress and get you ready for slumber, but Morrell says this is not the case.

“You don’t want to be playing football or swimming, for example, at around 8pm or 9pm, because it can make it harder to get to sleep later,” she explains. This is because the brain is sparked into life and the adrenaline is pumping and that can take some time to settle down.

Going for a light walk, reading or chatting with friends are some suggestions for alternatives.

It is not just what you do that counts towards an undisturbed night, but where you do it. Ellis says a good piece of advice that teachers can pass on is for pupils to make their bedroom, or at least the bed itself, a “separate space” from where they study, to help to create a “mental distance” between where they work and where they rest.

“Teenagers often live in their bedroom, but it’s important to try and separate where you study from where you sleep, even if that’s just by putting up a blanket between a desk and the bed,” he says. “It’s also not a good idea to revise sitting or lying down on the bed. You need to negotiate a balance so the bed remains very much your place of rest.”

Space to sleep

All the experts agree that bedrooms should be cool and dark, as this is the body’s preferred sleep environment. They also advise against caffeine intake, disappointing the hordes of teenage fans of energy drinks.

Of course, it’s possible that a student may follow all this advice but, due to exam nerves, still struggle to sleep. Ellis says that, to counter this, teachers should reassure pupils that if it happens the body is good at correcting itself and they shouldn’t panic or take drastic action.

“You need to put trust in your body. Our physiology is not there to harm us. So although when you’re stressed you may not sleep well for a night or two, the body will get back to normal quite quickly,” he explains. “It’s when we mess around with our body with erratic sleep times or too many stimulants that we suffer.”

Horne agrees, saying that it is important to reassure students that though a lack of sleep is not ideal, their success will not be defined by having a good night’s sleep but about the work they do before.

“Pupils may well be a bit worked up and not sleep well, regardless of what they do before bed, but just because you have a bad night’s sleep, it doesn’t not mean you won’t do well,” he explains.

If that’s not a positive enough message to give to students, Horne’s next will be greeted with glee. If sleep patterns are interrupted during revision season, he recommends a well-timed sleep-in at the weekend.

“You can recover from lost sleep quite easily, just by having a few extra hours’ sleep with a lie-in on the weekend,” he says.

There can’t be many youngsters who wouldn’t take that advice to heart.

Dan Watson is a freelance journalist

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