Should I study if I can't fall asleep?
Don't try to add more studying time if you don't fall asleep right away. Just get in bed even if you believe you'll be unable to sleep quickly. If you do need to get up to go to the bathroom, maintain low lighting. Bright lights are stimulating and should be avoided when you're trying to sleep.
Scores of studies conclude that students really do better when they sleep. Sleeping poorly (or not at all) leads to worse test results and poorer ability to learn new things. In fact, an all nighter hurts your ability to think, reason, and understand to the same degree as if you were taking your test drunk.
Study in a brightly lit area, but keep your computer's brightness setting on medium and try to focus on an object far away every 20-30 minutes. This helps reduce the strain on your eyes from staring at a bright screen for long periods of time. Work at a proper desk with a chair as far away from your bed as possible.
Study with lots of breaks
But if you're tired or not feeling well, change this ratio up. Try studying for 30 minutes then having a break for 15. Or study for 60 minutes then take a 30 minute break.
Staying up all night should never be thought of as positive or beneficial and should be avoided. Even in circumstances when pulling an all-nighter seems like it could help, such as to give you extra time to study or work, it's still typically a bad idea.
Sleeping for a couple of hours or fewer isn't ideal, but it can still provide your body with one sleep cycle. Ideally, it's a good idea to aim for at least 90 minutes of sleep so that your body has time to go through a full cycle.
While both options are far from ideal, a 2-3 hour sleep is generally considered better than an all-nighter in terms of promoting overall health and well-being. Getting at least a few hours of sleep can help your body rest and recharge, and may provide some cognitive and physical benefits.
- Do have some caffeine (within reason). ...
- Don't take a long nap. ...
- Do try to exercise. ...
- Don't skip meals, if possible. ...
- Do stay safe.
If you're tired but can't sleep, it may be a sign that your circadian rhythm is off. However, being tired all day and awake at night can also be caused by poor napping habits, anxiety, depression, caffeine consumption, blue light from devices, sleep disorders, and even diet.
- 1. Make a plan. ...
- Create a relaxed study environment. ...
- Take regular breaks. ...
- Don't get distracted by social media. ...
- Drink plenty of water and eat well. ...
- Reward yourself. ...
- Don't do all-nighters, you will regret it!
How do you know when to stop studying?
- You know your material. This one may seem obvious, but you should stop studying when you know the material. ...
- You are exhausted. Of course we are all exhausted. ...
- You have already been studying for an hour.
- Create a self-care plan. Focus on your well-being by devising a self-care plan tailored to your needs. ...
- Engage in regular exercise. ...
- Eat a nutritious diet. ...
- Fix your circadian rhythm. ...
- Stay organized. ...
- Strengthen your mental fitness.

Pulling an all-nighter will not reset or fix your sleep schedule. In fact, it may disrupt your sleep schedule even more. Depriving yourself of sleep for one night does not guarantee that you sleep well the following night.
The easy experimental answer to this question is 264 hours (about 11 days). In 1965, Randy Gardner, a 17-year-old high school student, set this apparent world-record for a science fair. Several other normal research subjects have remained awake for eight to 10 days in carefully monitored experiments.
National sleep foundation (US) | AASM/SRS (US) | |
---|---|---|
Age group | Recommendation | Recommendation |
Teenagers (14–17 years) | 8–10 hours | 8–10 hours |
Young adults (18–25 years) | 7–9 hours | ≥7 hours |
Adults (26–64 years) | 7–9 hours |
Musk wasn't a “chill, normal dude,” as he once joked on “Saturday Night Live.” Mr. Musk has said he usually goes to sleep around 3 a.m. and typically gets six hours of shut-eye before waking and immediately checking his phone for any new emergencies.
“A power nap is a nap that's short — less than 30 minutes long,” says Safia Khan, MD, a specialist in sleep disorders and an assistant professor in the department of family and community medicine and the department of neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Sleeping beyond the 90-minute cycle may mean you fall deeper into your sleep cycle and will find it much harder to wake up. The best answer to this question is that some sleep is always better than none. Trying to get in a power nap or achieving that full 90-minute cycle is better for you than no sleep at all.
Age Group | Recommended Hours of Sleep Per Day | |
---|---|---|
Newborn | 0–3 months | 14–17 hours (National Sleep Foundation)1 No recommendation (American Academy of Sleep Medicine)2 |
Teen | 13–18 years | 8–10 hours per 24 hours2 |
Adult | 18–60 years | 7 or more hours per night3 |
61–64 years | 7–9 hours1 |
The bare minimum of sleep needed to live, not just thrive, is 4 hours per 24-hour period. Seven to 9 hours of sleep are needed for health, renewal, learning, and memory.
Is it okay to sleep all day once in awhile?
...
The right amount of sleep to get.
Infants (4 months to 12 months) | 12-16 hours |
---|---|
Adults (61-64 years) | 7-9 hours |
Adults (65+ years) | 7-8 hours |
- Drinking water. Dehydration will increase your fatigue, so it is important to drink lots of water. ...
- Soaking up the sun. After drinking a big glass of water, go outside and bask in the sunlight for 30 minutes. ...
- Napping. Find a time during the day to take a 10 to 45 minute nap. ...
- Drinking caffeine.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) considers less than seven hours per night to be short sleep. View Source , which means for most people, six hours of sleep is not enough.
It depends on the cause of the sleep deprivation. If it is due to unrelenting insomnia, seek care at the doctor's office or Urgent Care. If you are seizing or hallucinating, get to the ER.
Insomnia is difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep for long enough to feel refreshed the next morning.
The primary signs of sleep deprivation include excessive daytime sleepiness and daytime impairment such as reduced concentration, slower thinking, and mood changes. Feeling extremely tired during the day is one of the hallmark symptoms of sleep deprivation.
Age | Recommended Amount of Sleep |
---|---|
Children 3 to 5 years old | 10 to 13 hours a day (including naps) |
Children 6 to 12 years old | 9 to 12 hours a day |
Teens 13 to 18 years old | 8 to 10 hours a day |
Adults 18 years or older | 7 to 8 hours a day |
Signs and symptoms of sleep deprivation
Feel tired, irritable, and fatigued during the day; yawn frequently. Have difficulty focusing or remembering things. Feel less interested in sex. Find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning, need an alarm clock to wake up on time, or repeatedly hit the snooze button.
Putting in those 100 hours isn't exactly a cakewalk, but it's completely doable. At 1 hour a day, you could learn a new skill in three months. At 5 hours a day, it would only take you three weeks. Devote your weekends to learning a new field, and it would take you ten weeks.
This is key as we tend to stop learning as we get older. Research suggests that by age 25 our brains tend to get "lazy." It's not that our gray cells can no longer learn new things, but rather we rely on a set number of neuro pathways to do our thinking. In other words, we get stuck in a brain rut.
What happens if you study too much?
Studying too hard and too much can easily lead to burnout and leave your mind frazzled on the test date. You'll want to take breaks away from studying and focus on the rest of your life, fun, and school work. When you create your study calendar, make sure to account for breaks as well as entire days off.
Decades of research have demonstrated that spacing out study sessions over a longer period of time improves long-term memory. In other words, if you have 12 hours to spend on a subject, it's better to study it for three hours each week for four weeks than to cram all 12 hours into week four.
Students today, especially high school and college students, are so busy. So if you're unmotivated, you might just be overwhelmed. You could be feeling the effects of difficulties in your family or the world at large. Maybe you're having a hard time focusing or feel like your goals are too far away.
And the more we use our brain to perform mental tasks, the more energy (i.e. glucose) is being used. This results in less glucose in the blood for other parts of the body, leading you to feel extreme exhaustion after long hours of thinking.
Brain fog occurs when the brain is overworked or under strain. The most common symptoms are feeling dazed and confused, headaches, thinking more slowly than usual, an inability to remember things or even tasks just completed, mental fatigue, and mood swings.
So, is it better to stay up late or wake up early to study? Both are okay as long as you don't reduce the amount of sleep you get. Not everyone is productive in the morning, and not everyone is effective at night. Do what works best for you, but try to get 7 to 9 hours of sleep.
Students who have more energy during the day will probably find they're better able to focus at night, while those who have more energy and focus in the morning would benefit from studying in the morning.
If you are an early bird, getting up two to three hours early will be better.” But if you're hell-bent on the all-nighter, first consider your current level of sleep deprivation, says Brues. If you're already dealing with a sleep deficit from the past few nights, an all-nighter is not a good idea.
That said, science has indicated that learning is most effective between 10 am to 2 pm and from 4 pm to 10 pm, when the brain is in an acquisition mode. On the other hand, the least effective learning time is between 4 am and 7 am.
Studying for 3 to 4 hours a day is the best number as it is realistic without being too small to actually get the work done. It has also been shown that this period of time allows your brain to work at full capacity without burning it out.
What is the most effective time to study?
Best time to study according to science
According to science, there are two windows of time the brain is most receptive to new material: 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and 4:00 pm to 10:00 pm.
Study in short time blocks like 1-2 hours at a time (take about a five minute break every half hour or ten minutes every hour), as you'll likely be able to focus better and remember a greater proportion of what you learned, and will also be less likely to procrastinate.