The Effects of Sleep on Confidence in Biochemistry Neesha Desai and Rebecca Joseph Introduction As college students, we all know sleep is a wonderful thing. Though sleep is still very much a mysterious process, many studies have linked inadequate sleep with lower academic performance. In one scientific study, a wide range of experimental observations indicated that sleep participates in the consolidation of fresh memory traces. At the network level, reactivations of neuronal assemblies, which are proposed to be involved in the processing of memory traces, were shown to occur during sleep. 1 This suggests that getting a good night’s sleep will help students remember material they learn in class and while studying, something very important to success in a class like biochemistry. Another experiment focusing on the relationship between on-call sleep duration of medical students and their participation in educational activities found that the students who got less sleep were less likely to go to class and learn important material. 2 Additionally, a relevant study investigated the impact of inadequate sleep on children’s daytime cognitive function. A wide range of clinical and observational data was found to support that inadequate sleep results in tiredness, difficulties with focused attention, low threshold to express negative affect (irritability and easy frustration), and difficulty modulating impulses and emotions. In some cases these symptoms resembled attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. 3 Focusing in class or studying for long amounts of time are important for absorbing information in lecture and effectively preparing for workshops and exams, so having these skills compromised due to lack of sleep could be a serious problem for students. We designed an experiment to see if there is an association between nightly sleep duration and confidence in the material covered in two biochemistry workshops over a three-week period. We believe students’ self-evaluations of confidence in the material are accurate representations of how well they remember and can process the material taught in class, and this may be related to how much sleep they get. Hypothesis We hypothesized that students in our workshops who get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep 4 will be more engaged in the workshop. Therefore these students will feel more confident about the material presented in workshop that week compared to students who did not get the recommended hours of sleep. Considering the information in the literature about the potential importance of sleep to academic success (see background), we formulated this hypothesis. Methods Workshop students were given surveys in four different workshop groups. The survey was administered to each workshop group twice during two different weeks. The survey asked questions about sleep the previous night, average sleep over the past week, and confidence in the workshop material presented in workshop that week, on a scale of 0 to 5. Students were given the survey to fill out at the end of the workshop. References 1. Maquet, Pierre. "The Role of Sleep in Learning and Memory." Science. Web. 2. Arora, Vineet M., et al. "Association of Workload of On-Call Medical Interns With On-Call Sleep Duration, Shift Duration, and Participation in Educational Activities." JAMA Network. Web. 3. Dahl, Ronald E. "The Impact of Inadequate Sleep on Children's Daytime Cognitive Function." ScienceDirect. Web. 4. "How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?" National Sleep Foundation. Web. Results Discussion We saw a significant difference in confidence level for workshop material when comparing hours of sleep the night before workshop We saw even more significantly higher levels of workshop confidence in students who slept an average of over 7 hours a night for the entirety of the week before workshop Overall, this confirms our hypothesis that sleep does improve how confident students are on workshop material. This supports previous literature, which states that our age group should get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. Our sample sizes were fairly small, so a larger sample is necessary to confirm these results. To be successful in college, make sleep a priority!.