Burning the Midnight Oil in Higher Studies
Is sleep expendable for students pursuing higher degrees? Many PhD students treat it that way. Intensive coursework, research, and teaching push their days past midnight, causing chronic exhaustion.
পিএইচডি শিক্ষার্থীদের কাছে পর্যাপ্ত ঘুম অনেক সময় বিলাসিতায় পরিণত হয়। কোর্সওয়ার্ক, গবেষণা, কনফারেন্স, টিএ/আরএ-র দায়িত্ব ও পারিবারিক সময় ইত্যাদি সব মিলিয়ে তাদের দিন গড়ায় মধ্যরাত পেরিয়ে। এর ফলে বাড়ে ক্লান্তি, উদ্বেগ ও মানসিক চাপ। তাহলে এই চক্র থেকে বের হওয়ার উপায় কী? স্বাস্থ্য ও মন ঠিক রেখে কীভাবে তারা আরও কার্যকর থাকতে পারেন, এই লেখায় রয়েছে সেই আলোচনা।
Sleep is essential for good health and productivity. Yet, for many Ph.D. students it feels like a luxury. While general health guidelines recommend around eight hours of sleep per night for adults, doctoral students routinely fall short. Their PhD life—intensive coursework, research pressure, teaching or assistantship responsibilities, funding anxiety, looming deadlines, and family commitments—often compresses sleep into the margins of the day. Over time, this lifestyle normalizes chronic sleep deprivation, contributing to fatigue, anxiety, depression, and burnout among doctoral students. Drawing on recent research, this article offers practical strategies to help doctoral students protect their sleep while sustaining productivity.
For doctoral students, the problem is rarely ignorance; it is culture. Those who are in the midst of a PhD, or who have completed this long and demanding journey, know that consistent, restorative sleep often feels unattainable. The pressures are not only academic but psychological: the constant need to prove oneself, secure funding, publish, and meet expectations. Over time, exhaustion becomes normalized, even worn as a quiet badge of dedication. It is no coincidence that many half-jokingly say PhD stands for “Permanent Head Damage.”
Academic publications on students’ sleep deprivation underscore the scale of the problem. A simple Google Scholar search using the keywords allintitle: students AND sleep yields thousands of results, showing sustained research attention to the issue. While much of this research focuses broadly on students, doctoral candidates face distinctive pressures that may intensify sleep disruption. Empirical studies show that stress-related sleep loss is significantly associated with exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced academic efficacy. In other words, insufficient sleep is not a minor inconvenience, it directly undermines the very performance doctoral training demands.
In Fall 2025, I began my own PhD journey and quickly encountered the culture of chronic sleep loss. In conversations with fellow doctoral students, a recurring concern emerged: very few felt they were getting enough sleep. Most reported sleeping fewer than six hours per night, well below the recommended amount for adults. The consequences were palpable, with many describing persistent fatigue, heightened anxiety, and symptoms of depression.
Why does this pattern persist? The structure of doctoral training places sustained pressure on students: heavy coursework, independent study, research production, conference participation, and the ongoing effort to balance family and social life. In many U.S. programs, particularly in the social sciences, arts, and humanities, students complete multiple courses per semester while also fulfilling 20-hour teaching or research assistantship commitments. Those serving as teaching assistants may additionally be responsible for undergraduate instruction. Over time, disrupted sleep cycles can lead to insomnia. In a 2022 study, Mbous and his colleagues found that insomnia is closely associated with poor mental health outcomes, including depression and ADHD symptoms. This further worsens the sleep loss and psychological distress, affecting the overall productivity generally made possible with sound mind and healthy lifestyle, as mentioned earlier.
According to the 2025 Sleep in America Poll by the National Sleep Foundation highlights the complexity of sleep experiences: while a large majority report general satisfaction with their sleep, nearly half still describe poor sleep quality or disruption. For doctoral students, improving sleep often requires intentional behavioral change. In her article “Sleep in Graduate School,” Eva Lantsoght (2013) outlines 18 practical strategies that PhD students can adopt. These include exercising regularly, reducing caffeine intake, maintaining a consistent daily routine, planning the next day’s tasks in advance, setting a fixed bedtime, and cultivating calming pre-sleep practices, such as reflective or religious rituals, to prepare the mind for rest.
Sleep is not optional; it is foundational to both personal well-being and collective productivity. As a PhD student, I have learned that protecting even a single night of rest can reshape the following day’s focus and performance. Chronic sleep loss erodes concentration, emotional stability, and long-term achievement. Prioritizing adequate sleep, through deliberate routines and boundaries, is not a sign of weakness but a strategy for sustaining intellectual excellence throughout the doctoral journey.
About the Author
Mamunor Rashid is a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder, United States. He can be reached at explorewithmamun@gmail.com
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect The Insighta's editorial stance. However, any errors in the stated facts or figures may be corrected if supported by verifiable evidence.