While it’s true that studying hard is always good, there comes a point where too much studying may actually have negative affects. The first reason is that the more you study, the less you sleep. According to researchers, if a student sacrifices sleep time to study more than usual, he or she will have more trouble understanding material being taught in class and will be more likely to struggle on a test the following day.
If you choose to cram in last minute studying for a test and end up studying for hours without taking breaks, your brain will begin to get fatigued and you will have more trouble processing and remembering information. If you study too much you may begin to realize that you can’t concentrate. Your thoughts may jump around in your head and you become easily distracted. It might even be more difficult to fall asleep. A balance of studying and breaks is essential.
A study conducted by Stanford Graduate School of Education, surveyed more than 4,300 students from ten high-performing public and private high schools in affluent California communities, and found that excessive homework causes high stress levels and physical health problems. Denise Pope, co-author of the study said, “We found a clear connection between the students’ stress and physical impacts — migraines, ulcers and other stomach problems, sleep deprivation and exhaustion, and weight loss.” Doing more than 3 hours of homework a night is actually the cause to many health problems.
According to the New York Times, “In 1900, Harvard Law School student William T. Parker Jr. went crazy—as in waving his hands wildly, [he] cried out a number of unintelligible sentences—during an exam. He was promptly sent to a hospital, where he died several days later of an abscess on the brain caused by overstudy.” There are many study/homework tips that are easy and help to avoid overstudying.
Caffeine filled all nighters the night before a big test are very popular among students, especially college students. Studying all night will actually only have a negative affect. Every hour of sleep lost that night impacts your performance the next day. In a new study, “535 high school 9th, 10th and 12th graders in Los Angeles kept a diary for 14 days that recorded how long they studied and slept, and whether or not they had any trouble understanding something in class the next day. They also reported how they performed on tests, quizzes and homework. For nearly all of the students, the researchers found that, counterintuitively, more study time correlated with worse academic performance. The connection, however, rested in the amount of sleep the students got: more studying tended to equal sacrificed sleep.” Don’t stay up all night to cram for a test. Think ahead and study productively and reasonably.
Works Cited
http://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-more-homework-means-more-stress-031114#2
http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/2014_03_22/Good-grades-or-ulcer-Studying-too-much-dangerous-for-your-childs-health-2096/
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/5/out-studying-school-people/
This is quite fitting as I am currently pulling an all-nighter. I agree with the study above as I noticed that when I do so that I do not produce my best work. I believe that academic is not only hindered through lack of sleep, but also because of the overload and staring that one does to his/her brain during an all-nighter. To combat all-nighters, I’ve been using: http://www.instructables.com/id/College-Hacks-How-to-Pull-An-All-Nighter-The-RI/?ALLSTEPS It includes some great advice!
We recently went over this in my psych class, it is better to go to sleep at a decent time before a test, rather than stay up all night studying. Although I believe it all comes down to time management, one can choose to study certain content for a period of time over several days, this does not necessarily mean that they are loosing sleep. I do not think it matters how much you study, but how you spread it out over time.http://www.howtostudy.com/manage-your-time/