The 8-Hour Challenge: Incentivizing Sleep during End-of-Term Assessments

Abstract

Sleep is critical to physical health, mental well-being, attention, and creativity. During the week of final exams, however, fewer than 10% of undergraduate students maintain the recommended average of 8 hours/night (or, even the recommended minimum of 7 hours/night). For students completing multifaceted projects in studio-based majors (e.g., interior design, architecture, graphic design, studio art), anecdotal and questionnaire data suggest that the end-of-semester reduction in sleep duration may be even worse. One potential solution is to offer students an incentive to maintain healthy sleep durations. We offered interior design students, who were enrolled in a freshman-level graphics studio course, an optional extra credit incentive to maintain optimal sleep durations for five nights leading up to the due date of their final project. If participants maintained an average sleep duration of ≥ 8.0 hours for five nights, they would earn extra credit. By contrast, if they slept an average of 7.0-7.9 hours, there would be no grade change, and if they slept an average of ≤ 6.9 hours, they were instructed that they would lose points (no points were actually deducted). Of the 28 students enrolled in the course, 22 students attempted the challenge (78.6%), and we monitored their sleep duration objectively using wristband actigraphy devices. We compared their sleep duration to that of a group of 22 non-incentivized students enrolled in the same program. In the non-incentivized comparison group, very few students averaged 8 hours (9%) or even 7 hours (14%) of sleep per night. In dramatic contrast, the eight-hour challenge increased the percentage of 8-hour and 7-hour sleepers to 59% and 86%, respectively. Participants who took the eight-hour challenge slept an average of 98 minutes more each night than non-incentivized students and 82 minutes more than they self-reported to sleeping during the semester. The substantial increase in nightly sleep duration did not come at a cost to project performance. Individuals who opted in to the sleep challenge performed as well on the final project as students who did not opt in, and students who showed more consistent sleep (i.e., fewer nights of poor sleep followed by rebound sleep) performed better than students who showed inconsistent sleep. Thus, even during highly stressful "deadline" weeks, students can maintain healthy sleeping patterns without exacting a cost on their project performance.

Figure 1.. Infographic Summary of the Importance of Healthy Sleep and Comparison of Eight-Hour Challenge Sleepers with Non-Incentivized Students.

More than six times the number of students in the eight-hour challenge group met optimal and minimal sleep recommendations compared to the non-incentivized comparison group.

Figure 2.. Mean Sleep Duration Preceding Submitting a Final/Term Project.

Each individual is represented by a green circle (Eight Hour Challenge group) or a gold square (Non-Incentivized Comparison group), with the group averages appearing as green and gold lines, respectively.

Figure 3.. Changes in Sleep from Normal Weeks to Incentivized Week.

The majority of students were short and poor quality sleepers as assessed by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, but 90% of them improved their sleep when incentivized by extra credit (measured by actigraphy).

Figure 4.. Greater Variability in Sleep Durations was Associated with Worse Final/Term Project Grade.

Scatterplot illustrates a negative association between standard deviations of sleep durations and final/term project grades in students who opted-in to the eight-hour challenge, an association that remained statistically significant even when controlling for mean total sleep time.