Xiaolu Hsi, MIT Medical Psychologist
Finals week is stressful. One of the most effective way to help maximize your good testing performance and to reduce your stress is ensure you get adequate sleep, regular sleep and good sleep. Sleep deprivation impairs attention/focus, processing sleep, working memory and cognitive flexibility, critical to learning and problem solving. There is empirical evidence that whether you get adequate sleep (that’s at least 8 hours) and if you get it regularly (that’s at least a week before the exam) significantly affect your grades. Here are some simple tips:
- Get 8 hours of sleep every day.
- Get up as close to the time of sunrise as possible (count backwards for 8 hours to note when you should go to bed).
- Set an alarm on your phone an hour before that to remind yourself you should get ready for bed.
- For those of you who have trouble falling asleep, turn off your ceiling lights an hour before bed time and stop using laptop and any other mobile device for reading an hour before bed time.
- Open your shades so day light would naturally come into your room in the morning.
- If you exercise regularly, you should not exercise within three hours before your bedtime (or at midnight). Rather, you may get more out of it if you exercise in the morning.
For research on effect of sleep deprivation on cognition, search “Robert Stigold”, a renowned sleep and cognition researcher and father of a MIT student. Good luck on finals and get adequate sleep!
By Xiaolu Hsi, MIT Medical Psychologist