Tips for Sleeping Better Before an Exam
If you have an important upcoming exam, the stress and anxiety leading to the big day may not just impact you mentally. It also can impact you physically. Excessive sweating, feelings of nausea, a racing heart, and trouble breathing are common signs of test anxiety, but that's not all. Poor sleep is another side effect of stress that can hurt your test score.
Unfortunately for many test takers, quality sleep before exam day is one of those often-overlooked test preparation that can factor into a solid score. Too often, students sacrifice sleep for more study time, which doesn't help. If you're struggling to catch some Z's before the test, find out why this is a big deal and what you can do about it.
Why Is Sleep Before an Exam Important?
Think missing a little sleep only hurts your mood and leaves you a little cranky? Think again. Poor sleep directly impacts your ability to perform mental tasks, which is disastrous on test day. Particularly on standardized tests, your mental sharpness is exactly what is being evaluated, so the last thing you want to do is compromise those skills by doing anything that gets in the way of a good night's rest.
Pulling an all-nighter is nearly a rite of passage in college, but it is not an effective form of test prep. Cramming the day before an exam at the expense of quality sleep more often than not hurts rather than helps you by creating a series of negative impacts.
Your memory suffers.Your body is deprived of its chance to recover.You fight your body's natural desire to rest.Your stress hormone levels are increased.Your concentration and accuracy go down.Your judgement wanes.
If you don't think sleeping is essential to your mental performance, just look at the results when you fail to get the rest your body craves and needs. Interestingly, many college students get less sleep during the exact period when they need it most: finals week.
How Much Sleep Should You Get Before an Exam?
To feel fully rested, most adults require seven to nine hours of sleep. For adolescents, it's about an hour more. However, if you're thinking one good night's rest before exam day is enough, you're wrong.
You can run a "sleep debt" which is the total sleep loss that accumulates in a given period. Even if you get a good eight hours of sleep the night before the big test day, you may not be as rested as you think. If you did not maintain a healthy sleep pattern the week leading to the exam, you'll carry all of those missed hours of sleep into the test with you.
Unsure if you're running a sleep debt that could impact your exam performance? Consider keeping a sleep diary. Note when you went to bed, how much you slept, how rested you feel, and how alert you find yourself in the morning. Plus, you'll want to note any times that you feel tired throughout the day. All of this info can help pinpoint any problems with your sleep schedule.
How Can You Tackle the Exam Fully Rested?
If sleep loss can accumulate over several days or weeks, the key is to get into a healthy sleep habit well before your exam and stick to it. It may take some adjustment to your routine, but getting on a healthy sleep schedule is possible if you follow a few simple steps:
Set aside enough time to sleep.Go to bed and wake up at the same times each day, even on weekends.Avoid anything loud or stimulating for an hour before bed.Don't eat or drink anything in large quantities at least two hours before bed.Avoid alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine.Participate in physical activity each day, particularly outdoors.Make your bedroom a quiet, dark place without any electronic devices and distractions.Limit daytime nap length to no more than 20 minutes.
The key here is consistency. The longer and more strictly you follow the steps above, the greater your success falling and staying asleep. Ideally, you'll go into test day after maintaining a strict sleep schedule for several weeks.
Trading Sleep for Studying Does Not Work
For far too many people, sacrificing sleep is their first strategy to fight test anxiety and pack in more study time. This will not help you as you prepare for an exam, and it may backfire. Studies have shown that students who sleep more perform better than those who stayed up to cram.
There's no shortcut to a great exam score. If you have an important test coming up, you need to remember that it's about investing as much time and effort into your health and well-being as it is studying the material.
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How to sleep better before exams
1. Make time for sleep
The most important thing is to remember to schedule time for sleep. When you have to get up at a certain time, count back the number of hours you want to sleep and then add half an hour. This time becomes the scheduled time to switch the lights out. The extra half an hour is important - we often forget about the time it takes to brush teeth, set the alarm clock and so on.
2. Watch what and when you eat and sleep
Eating late meals because you have been studying all day will alter your internal clock and impair sleep. Although you should try not to go to bed hungry, try to have a big dinner before 7pm and then a smaller snack in the evening if you are still hungry. It's thought that certain foods help sleep; turkey, milk, bananas, and walnuts all contain tryptophan, which the body uses to make melatonin.
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3. Limit caffeinated drinks for sleep before exam..
Although the impact of caffeine varies from person to person, try avoiding all sources of caffeine from 3pm and adjust if needed. Remember caffeine isn't just in coffee – it's also in things like tea, chocolate, and fizzy drinks.
4. Make your bedroom a place of rest
Checking emails or doing some last-minute revision in bed may stop your brain associating the bedroom as a place of quiet rest and, instead, the bed becomes associated as a place of cognitive arousal. This can make it hard to initiate sleep, so remove all distracting items from the bedroom area.
5. Don't use your smartphone in bed
Electronic devices emit noise and light; both will stop you sleeping. LCD screens on phones and tablets emit light that is blue enriched. This light influences the body's internal clock (circadian rhythm) and delays the release of the 'sleep hormone' melatonin. Without melatonin, although you can sleep, the sleep you achieve will be light and non-refreshing. Light can also make you feel more alert, again training the brain to perceive the bed as a place of cognitive arousal.
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6. Have a bedtime routine
Doing exercise is a great way to relax during the exam period, as it causes the release of endorphins and improves your mood. However, the endorphins released from exercise can also impair sleep. As such, try to avoid exercising within two hours of bedtime. Instead, use those few hours to create a relaxing bedtime routine – perhaps by having a bath with lavender oil, or sitting and reading a book.
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7. Clear your head before bed
There's some truth in the old saying that taking a problem to bed means you wake up with the solution - but don't let the problem keep you awake.
Sitting and ruminating over thoughts of the day will keep the brain active, so try keeping a notebook by your bed to write thoughts down before sleep instead. Meditation and breathing exercises can also help.
If you can't drop off, don't stay in bed trying to force yourself to sleep. Instead, employ the 15-minute rule: if you can't sleep after what feels like 15 minutes, get up, leave the bedroom, and read or relax somewhere else. Only return to the room when you feel sleepy again.
8. Remember - one night of bad sleep won't hurt
Your day may be more difficult and you might need more coffee to function, but you will make it through the day after one night of poor sleep. Sleep is an autonomic function – you can't force yourself to sleep, so worrying about not sleeping or the effect of not sleeping on the following day will impair sleep.
Try not to nap, but if you need to, keep any naps to less than 30 minutes in length and don't take them after 3pm. Remember, after a night of poor sleep, you are more likely to sleep the following night!
