Exam-week sleep: why all-nighters backfire

When an exam is close, staying up late can feel like the responsible choice. Research suggests it usually isn’t.

What sleep does for studying

AASM’s review of the evidence found that getting enough sleep is linked with better attention, behaviour, learning and memory, and that regularly sleeping less than recommended is linked with problems in the same areas (AASM, 2016). In other words, the hours you sleep are part of how what you studied gets used on exam day.

A friendlier plan for exam week

• Protect your sleep window first. For 13–18 year olds that’s 8–10 hours. Decide your wake-up time, then work out bedtime with the school-night calculator.
• Study earlier, in blocks. Several focused sessions with short breaks beat one late-night marathon.
• Stop studying a little before bed. Give your mind time to wind down.
• If you’re tired in the afternoon, nap briefly. A 10-minute nap gave the quickest boost to alertness in one lab study, while longer naps took longer to feel better (Brooks & Lack, 2006). Try our power nap planner.
• Watch late caffeine. In a small study, caffeine taken even 6 hours before bed cut sleep by more than an hour (Drake et al., 2013).

If you’re already behind on sleep

Don’t panic. One short night won’t ruin an exam, but a run of them will make everything harder. Add a little extra sleep over the next few nights; our sleep debt calculator shows a realistic plan.

If stress is keeping you awake night after night, talk to a doctor or someone you trust.