Late nights and early lectures: What a lack of sleep is doing to your body.

You want a night life, but also academic success? It has become increasingly difficult to find the right balance and with uni work pilling up and lectures to attend, it is easy to throw your routine out of the window and opt for a quick coffee as you are rushing out the door. Of course this is bound to happen at uni, more than I’d like to admit personally, but after researching how detrimental insufficient sleep is on my body, I feel inclined to look after it a little more.

Whether it is staying on your phone until 3am, or clubbing until 4, sleep is sacrificed time and time again. The blue light from our screens can “disrupt circadian rhythms by suppressing melatonin” which results in “the inability to fall asleep at a reasonable time”, (Owens, 924) making it harder and harder to rest after being online. We think that a quick coffee will help matters and inject energy back into our system, but in actual fact caffeine use is directly linked to a “shorter sleep duration, increased sleep onset latency, increased wake time after sleep onset, and increased daytime sleepiness”, (Owens, 925) making it appear as if caffeine is no longer your best friend after a disrupted night.

When you sleep, your brain almost detoxes. It’s called the glymphatic system. Basically, as Satchin Panda PhD puts it, “during the daytime, brain cells absorb and process nutrients, creating unwanted toxic by-products. These toxins are cleaned up when we sleep, and new brain cells are created. If this waste clearance isn’t happening, it affects your brain function and increases the risk of neurodegenerative disease.” (JJVirgin) This is why it is so important to have a good sleep schedule, as when you sleep it gives your brain a chance to reboot and refresh.

Insufficient sleep directly effects concentration, intern effecting the quality of your work. Jolanta Orzel-Gryglewska states that “work effectiveness decreases during sleep deprivation” and that “one night sleep deprivation contributed to a 20–32% increase in the number of errors”, (Orzel-Gryglewska, 100) highlighting how a lack of sleep can increase the likelihood of you making mistakes. Your recent 2:2 may simply be down to your messy sleep schedule!

“Mosleh et al. identified cognitive impairments as part of the fatigue experience, with 18% of students reporting poor concentration and 23.3% experiencing difficulty recalling recent information”, further suggesting how a lack of sleep can contribute to poor focus. The article further outlines how “sleep loss compromises the functioning of the prefrontal cortex, which is highly sensitive to sleep and crucial for cognition and memory”, intern hindering a person’s “ability to focus, analyze, and make decisions, thus directly impacting concentration”. (Inan et al, 4)

I struggle to find a balance between late nights and slow evenings, but I think creating some sort of schedule can have a really positive impact on your mental and physical health, as well as the quality of your uni work. Take care of yourself and remember to make time for 10pm bedtimes as well as the 3am’s.

Bibliography

Inan, Fethi Ahmet. The Role of Fatigue in the Relationship between Sleep and Concentration among Online College Students. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2025.

ORZEŁ-GRYGLEWSKA, JOLANTA. “CONSEQUENCES of SLEEP DEPRIVATION.: EBSCOhost.” Ebscohost.com, 2025.

Owens, Judith. “Insufficient Sleep in Adolescents and Young Adults: An Update on Causes and Consequences.” Pediatrics, vol. 134, no. 3, Aug. 2014, pp. 921–32.

Virgin, J. J. “What Happens to Your Body When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep.” JJ Virgin, 2 May 2023.

• #mental health
• #sleep
• #university