While the growing swell of sleep research tends to focus on the amount of time we sleep, scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital have found routine is just as key.
A team measured sleep and circadian rhythms in 61 undergraduates at Harvard College for 30 days using sleep diaries, then compared that data to their academic performance.
Overwhelmingly, students with irregular patterns of sleep and wakefulness had a lower grade point average than the rest.
They also tended to hit snooze more often, rather than bounding out of bed, and struggled to get sleepy, due to irregular releases of melatonin - the hormone that makes us want to sleep. The research is one of the first studies to have considered or accurately quantified the effects of regular sleep patterns.
It suggests a more inconsistent routine prevents your body from releasing hormones at the right time to make you feel sleepy and awake, thereby throwing off your circadian rhythm (body clock). In the study, the researchers quantified sleep regularity using the sleep regularity index (SRI), a newly devised metric.
