Is it normal to go to classes on less than 6 hours of sleep?

That’s pretty much the MO

Okay, so I just came back from a conversation with my dad, and he had this to say about sleep in college:

“Sleep is overrated. Highly overrated.”

This is a direct quote.

He firmly college students are destined to live on less than 6 hours of sleep. How could he possibly know this when he’s never studied at an American college? You tell me.

That’s not true or healthy. If you don’t get enough sleep, you will have a harder time functioning, have a lesser ability to remember or complete complex asks, be more prone to depression and other mental illnesses, and is just very bad for your body physically.

When I attended college, thankfully I found that it was much better than high school because you had more free time, less classes per day, and more of an ability to change your own schedule. It is a good idea to develop good habits though as it sounds like your current ones are not healthy.

Honestly, it depends on the time of the year. Like I have a pretty heavy course load and am involved with a lot of extracurriculars and some weeks (especially around exam time or during swim season) I am struggling to sleep more than four hours and then other weeks I don’t really have any homework or anything I need to do. Just watch what youre doing w your time and watch to see if youre actually busy all of the time or it just feels like you are. often times my friends and I just catch up on sleep during the weekends. It’s not uncommon after a hard week to sleep like 14-15 hours that friday night (but I dont really think its that healthy, so you shouldn’t do it if you can avoid it)

Living on 6 hours of sleep in high school isn’t healthy at all, but in my experience, it’s very much normal. It’s even a norm at my school, and we don’t start until 9:05.

No dude. It is not normal. During school, I sleep from 9-5:30 which is 8 1/2 hours. Class starts at 7:00. I also have cross country/track practice after school and I usually get home around 5:00. I never have a problem getting enough sleep. I could never see you having more than 3 1/2 hours of homework ever. If you do that is just ridiculous. Sleep earlier brah.

Does it matter what his opinion is?

I need at least 8 hours and create a schedule that accomplished this based in my morning start time.

On the other hand, my husband has always functioned successfully on less sleep. He seems to effortlessly adjust to jet lag. He was born in South America, raised in Europe and travels to Asia for work frequently.