Impact of Less Sleep on Students’ Focus and Performance
Authors:
Yash Deshmukh – 0225008
Sanskruti Patil – 0225038
Shreya Poojari – 0225041
Introduction:
Lack of sufficient sleep is a common problem among students due to academic pressure, late-night study, and excessive use of electronic devices. Sleep plays a crucial role in maintaining concentration, memory, and overall brain function. When students do not get enough sleep, their ability to focus in class and understand new information decreases. This can negatively affect their academic performance and learning outcomes. In the long run, continuous sleep deprivation may also lead to stress, fatigue, and reduced motivation to study. Therefore, proper sleep is essential for students to maintain focus and achieve better academic performance.
Objective:
To understand the phenomena of less sleep and its impact on students’ overall focus and performance.
Literature Review:
1. Sleep Beliefs Can Affect Thinking Ability
“Association Between Sleep, Beliefs About Sleep, and Executive Functioning in a College Student Sample: The Moderating Role of Dysfunctional Beliefs” explains links among sleep quality, sleep duration, sleep beliefs, and executive functioning in college populations. Schneider, Falletta, and Everhart show insomnia severity influencing inhibition and cognitive flexibility in perception-based measures, while sleep duration shows little effect in objective cognitive tests. Schneider, Falletta, and Everhart also show dysfunctional sleep beliefs increasing perceived cognitive problems during short sleep duration, while working memory remains less affected. (Schneider, Falletta, Everhart — 22 September 2025)
2. Poor Sleep Is Common in Medical Students
“Impact of Sleep Quality on Academic Achievements of Undergraduate Medical Students: A Cross-Sectional Study from Saudi Arabia” examines sleep quality among medical student populations. Khaled, Almaghaslah, Siddiqua, Kandasamy, and Orayj report poor sleep quality in 88.1% of medical students and identify stress, class schedules, workload, caffeine, and social media as major causes. Khaled, Almaghaslah, Siddiqua, Kandasamy, and Orayj also show regular sleep schedules improving sleep quality, while sleep quality shows no strong link with GPA results. (Khaled, Almaghaslah, Siddiqua, Kandasamy, Orayj — 2025)
Data Collection:
To understand the underline issues following 5 questions where framed to be answered on likert scale.
1) I do not get enough sleep at night.
2) Less sleep reduces my focus.
3) Lack of sleep makes me sleepy in class.
4) Using the phone affects my sleep.
5) Insufficient sleep affects my performance.
A google form was prepared and our friends from KBS were requested to fill the form which had linear scale 1 for strongly disagree and 5 for strongly agree. The data was downloaded in excel sheet. 100 persons where survey for every question Mean, Standard Deviation (SD), Standard Error (SE) and T-stat or (Z) were calculated.
Data Analysis:
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5
Mean 3.44 4.01 3.82 3.94 3.93
SD 1.38. 1.08 1.16 1.00 1.19
SE. 0.14 0.11 0.12 0.10 0.12
Z 3.19 9.34 7.06 9.42. 7.79
Result POSITIVE POSITIVE POSITIVE POSITIVE POSITIVE
Conclusion:
1) People do not get enough sleep at night.
2) Less sleep reduces people’s focus.
3) Lack of sleep makes people sleepy in class.
4) Using the phone affects people’s sleep.
5) Insufficient sleep affects people’s sleep.
References:
Schneider, K., Falletta, G., & Everhart, D. E. (2025). Association between sleep, beliefs about sleep, and executive functioning in a college student sample: The moderating role of dysfunctional beliefs. Healthcare, 13(18), 2373.
Khaled, A., Almaghaslah, D., Siddiqua, A., Kandasamy, G., & Orayj, K. (2025). Impact of sleep quality on academic achievements of undergraduate medical students: A cross-sectional study from Saudi Arabia. BMC Medical Education, 25, 59.