Sleeping, Eating and other College Routines

I can’t tell you the number of times students have come onto the office saying “I haven’t slept in two days because I don’t have time,” or, “Actually, I don’t think I ate anything at all yesterday: I’m not sure.” There is a nasty rumor going around that success in college requires students to completely abandon every smart health habit they’ve ever learned, when of course, the opposite is true. In fact, the most successful students are those who keep to healthy habits regarding their diet, sleeping habits and exercise.

College is a very unfamiliar environment for new students, particularly those who live on campus. Sure, they’re familiar with classes in general, but not with the rigor, pace and depth of college courses. Here depth means that students don’t go to class to learn how to parrot back the things the professor says in class. They go so they can make independent leaps of learning and gain a deeper understanding of course material than they ever did in high school. As a result, it is much more rigorous and requires much more time outside of class than students are accustomed to spending. Few statements concern me more than a first year student who says “It’s all pretty much common sense, so I don’t need to study more than maybe an hour a day.” I asked one student to put together a schedule for the week that included time for studying, classes, meals and other routines, and he surprised me by identifying maybe two hours a night for studying, even though he was taking a full load of sixteen semester hours. Trust me, spending maybe twelve to fourteen hours a week studying will not result in academic success at any college I know of. When I pointed this out to him and showed him what would be an ideal schedule for studying, he was shocked. And once many students realize the need to spend so much more time on study, they completely forget that there are other parts of their life as well.

It’s very easy for new students to get too little sleep at exactly the wrong times. Students stay up late (because no one is there to tell them any different) and wake up too late (because they don’t have a parent alarm clock around), then wonder why they’re in danger of failing because they’ve missed their 9:30 class too many times. My first reality check to students is that if they’re already tired from too little sleep, spending the next four hours studying “because it has to get done,” just won’t work. Instead, I recommend that they sleep, perhaps by taking a two to four hour nap and then studying for two hours. While the whole idea of stopping their studying for something as inconsequential as sleep seems crazy to them, the fact is that getting a little sleep to recharge their brains results in actual learning taking place while they study, rather than just reading the material over and over again and wondering why they can’t remember it. This is definitely a hard sell, particular for students who feel under the gun.

The same applies to eating, which is usually a huge surprise for their parents who have been feeding what they saw as a human garbage disposal during their high school years. Students often lament the food at the college cafeteria, even as they wolf down large amounts of it during the first semester, then suddenly when they begin to feel the pressure of academics, they abandon all eating — or at least the healthy kind. That’s replaced by Doritos, pizza and other foods that your wish you student would eat in moderation. Plus they eat at all times of the day and night, and seldom at the ideal times.

Finally, your student athlete son or daughter often goes to college with every intention of maintaining their exercise schedule during their off season, yet that can fall by the wayside as soon as their classes heat up. What started out as regular times on the treadmill or in the weight room became less and less frequent, until they begin to feel a mini spare tire at their waist.

But enough doom and gloom. A few things you can say to your son and daughter about this include helping them figure out how much sleep they need and help them develop a realistic schedule of studying and everything else they need to do. In fact, when I ask students to put together a sample schedule, I insist that they list such mundane things as laundry. This is not because doing their laundry is as important as attending class, but it is to show them that the life of a college student is both exciting and kind of boring. So for the seven day week the sample schedule starts at midnight and ends at midnight, because college students are known to do their laundry at midnight. And there needs to be time in the schedule for regular meals (even a half hour is enough time for this). Hope for eight hours of sleep a night and settle for six, but hold them to it, and really push them to do some kind of exercise three times a week, even if it is primarily intramural volleyball or badminton — anything that gets them moving. All of these good habits: eating a decent diet, sleeping enough, and exercising even moderately, will do more to help students succeed than pulling even one all-nighter, and I say this from painful personal experience.

Successful college students make these plans from the beginning. If you can encourage your student to do the same, they’ll be the ones pulling the “As” with no bloodshot eyes. And isn’t that a prettier picture than the alternative?