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Do all-night study sessions help or hurt?
Summary 13S
ure, you have glanced over your notes once or twice. You’ve
attended almost every class, but tomorrow is the big exam
and you’re not ready! Of course, your only option is to turn to the
infamous all nighter for salvation.
Trying to cram in an enormous amount of studying the night
before an exam is detrimental not only to your health but also
to your grade. All nighters generally combine sleep deprivation
with increased stimulant consumption and low-quality food
choices, which can all lead to disaster. When you get dramatically
less sleep than your body requires, there are direct physiological
consequences, such as comprised immunity, increased tension,
and decreased ability to recall information and maintain
concentration.
Have you ever noticed that you and your classmates always
seem to come down with a nasty cold right after finals? A study
by Irwin et al. (1996) showed that by getting less than 6 hours of
sleep per night, you can decrease your immune system’s T-cell
count by up to 50%. When you’re sleep deprived, you also beco-
me more accident prone, irritable, and unable to deal with life’s
little stresses.
All-nighter students often believe that they’re sacrificing
their health for the good of their grades. Unfortunately, that
is usually untrue. A study by De Koninck et al. (1989) conclu-
ded that students who participate in all-night study sessions
actually perform significantly worse than their well-rested
classmates. Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep plays an impor-
tant part in allowing the brain to retain and recall new informa-
tion. By depriving yourself of quality sleep, you are missing out
on the extremely beneficial REM sleep required to excel at any
exam.
Once the big exam is over, an all-nighter student crashes
into bed to catch up on all that lost sleep. However, our needs
for sleep cannot be borrowed and paid back like a credit card.
You may need several days of excellent sleep just to recover
from a single all nighter. Symptoms of this recovery can be
lethargy, loss of motivation, and mood swings.
The bottom line is that students with the highest grades
tend to get consistently good sleep throughout the term, space
out their study times, and plan ahead to ensure that they don’t
fall victim to the dreaded all nighter.Literature Cited
De Koninck J. Lorrain D. Christ G. Proulx G. Coulombe D.
(1989). Intensive language learning and increases in rapid eye
movement sleep: evidence of a performance factor. Int J Psycho-
physiology 8:43–47.
Irwin M. McClintick J. Costlow C. Fortner M. White J. Gillin
J.C. (1996) Partial night sleep deprivation reduces natural
killer and cellular immune responses in humans. FASEB J Apr;
10(5):643–653.Summary
2
What Kind of Learner Are You? 5
• The human brain commits new information through the senses:
hearing, tasting, touching, seeing, and smelling.
• Visual learners learn by seeing, auditory learners learn by hear-
ing, and kinesthetic learners learn by doing.
• Each person has a unique combination of learning styles, and no
one style is better than another. Finding what works best for you
can help increase your studying efficiency.
• Creating a study plan tailored to your unique learning style can
help make your study time more efficient and productive.✓✓THE PLAnnEr
1
You and Your Textbook 4
• Your textbook is a tool and should be used as such. Correctly utilizing the distinct features will help to improve your ability
to learn the subject.
• When beginning a new chapter, go from broad to specific.
• Be an active learner to get the most out of your study time.✓✓THE PLAnnEr