There are at least a few in every college dorm: students who seem to exist in their own time zone, in bed hours before everyone else and awake again at daybreak, rested and prepared for the morning's first lecture.

    Sleep researchers refer to these early risers as larks （midnight-oil-burners are known as owls）, and new data presented this week at the annual Associated Professional Sleep Societies suggest that a student's preferred sleeping schedule has a lot to do with his or her grade-point average in school. In one study, psychologists at Hendrix College in Arkansas found that college freshmen who kept night-owl hours had lower GPAs than early birds. Another group at the University of Pittsburgh revealed that poor sleep habits among high-schoolers led to lower grades, particularly in math.

    It's no surprise that poor sleep habits may negatively impact academic performance - anyone who's been exhausted enough to doze off during class knows that's detrimental to learning. And dozens of studies have linked an increase in nightly sleep to better cognition and alertness. The new research, however, goes a step further, quantifying the impact of erratic or inadequate sleep on grades. "These findings are more tangible than saying that if you get more sleep, you'll feel better," says Jennifer Cousins, a fellow at the University of Pittsburgh and author of one of the studies. "They connect sleep and how you sleep to the real world of daily activities."

    In the study of night owls, psychologist Jennifer Peszka asked a group of 89 incoming Hendrix College freshmen ages 17 to 20 to fill out a questionnaire about their sleep preferences prior to arriving on campus. Regardless of how much they actually slept, Peszka asked them whether they considered themselves owls, larks or, in the case of those who were neither very late or very early sleepers, robins. Students also answered questions about their sleep "hygiene" - factors that contribute to quality of sleep, such as adhering to a regular bedtime, waking up at the same time every day, or exercising or drinking caffeine before trying to sleep. One year, Peszka asked the same students to fill out another similar questionnaire to determine whether their sleep schedules were associated with GPA.

    The owls, it turned out, averaged a 2.84 GPA at the end of their freshman year. Larks and robins both averaged 3.18. That means high-quality sleep may have contributed to one group of students' B average, while inadequate shut-eye pushed owls into the C range. Peszka also compared the students' high school GPAs with their college scores, and found that owls had lost an entire GPA point once entering college - larks and robins also saw their grades drop （a common phenomenon as students transition from high school to university）, but not as much. "Not only did they flat out have a lower freshman GPA," she says of the owls, "but they also dropped their grades more."

    The study did not delve into the details of why owls may perform worse in school, but Peszka suspects it may boil down to "an owl living a lark's schedule." Students with late bedtimes still end up taking early morning classes, which means they often end up feeling sleepier and less alert during the day. In fact, in Peszka's study, night owls slept 41 minutes less each night than the other students, but were still attending early classes, during which they reported sleepiness and inability to concentrate, which, unsurprisingly, led to lower scores at exam time.

    That's precisely what University of Pittsburgh researchers found in their study of 56 teens ages 14 to 18. Jennifer Cousins, a postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry, asked the adolescents to fill out sleep diaries for one week and wear a special activity monitor on their wrist, which recorded when the students were asleep or awake. Overall, teens with poor sleep habits - those who woke up frequently during the night, spent more hours in bed （whether or not they were sleeping） and reported feeling tired in the morning - received lower grades than students who stuck with a more regular sleep routine.

    Interestingly, Cousins also found that different sleep habits had different effects on the student's school performance: those who woke up more often during the night and reported poorer sleep quality did worse in math, for example, while those who slumbered peacefully through the night tended to get better grades in English. "These findings bring up new questions about teasing out the specifics of what is important about sleep that impacts learning," says Cousins. "Does sleeping more help our ability to deal with abstract concepts found in math, or does sleep quality increase creativity? We don't know the answers, and don't want to draw those conclusions yet. But this helps us understand more about how sleep helps the things we do in daily life."

    Both groups of researchers are quick to point out that academic performance is the product of many different factors - from I.Q. to study habits and effort, and not just sleep - but the new findings suggest that catching good quality z's certainly doesn't hurt, and may even help boost your GPA.

    在大學宿舍都至少有一小撮學生：他們似乎生活在自己的時區，在其他人上床前幾小時就睡覺然后在黎明醒來，休息一下并準備上午的第一堂課。

    睡眠研究人員提及這些早起的人稱他們為"云雀"（最能熬夜的午夜燃燒器是貓頭鷹）,最新的發表在這周的《年度相關專業睡眠協會》的數據表明：學生首選的睡眠時間表與他或她在學校的平均學分積有很強的相關。在一項研究中，阿肯色州里克斯學院的心理學家發現，大學新生中那些"夜貓子"式的作息方式的學生們比早起的"云雀"平均學分積低。另一組美國匹茲堡大學的研究發現，高中學生劣質的睡眠作息方式導致較低的學習成績，特別是數學成績。

    毫不奇怪，劣質的睡眠作息習慣會對學習成績產生不利的影響。那些已經累到在課堂上打盹的人都知道，這樣對學習很不好。其他幾十個研究表明夜間睡眠時間的增加與更好的認知和警覺感覺相聯系。然而，這項新的研究更進了一步，它量化了睡眠的影響，探索了不穩定或睡眠不足對于學習成績的影響。"比起那些空洞的說法說：如果你獲得更多的睡眠，你會感覺更好。這些調查結果更為具體。"詹妮弗�？ㄔ�斯說。他們將睡眠和你在現實世界的日�；顒又腥绾嗡�眠聯系起來。

    在對那些"夜貓子"的研究中，心理學家詹妮弗。佩茲卡讓來自里克斯大學89名17-20歲的大一新生填寫了一張問卷調查他們在進入大學之前的睡眠偏好。無論他們自己的睡眠偏好如何，詹妮弗都會讓他們自己評價自己認為自己是"夜貓子","云雀",還是睡得不早也不晚介于中間角色的"知更鳥".大學生們還回答了關于自己睡眠的"衛生"--影響睡眠質量的因素，比如堅持固定的上床時間，每天同樣的時間點起床，在睡前運動，喝咖啡等等。一年之后，佩茲卡讓他們再填寫相同的問卷，以此來考察他們的睡眠時間表與平均學分積是否相關。

    研究表明，那些"夜貓子"們，在他們的大一學年末有2.48的平均學分積；而"云雀"有3.18的平均學分積。這表明高質量的睡眠很可能對學生B的平均學分積有貢獻。佩茲卡同時還對比了那些學生在高中時候的學分積，發現那些熬夜的"貓頭鷹"們自從進入大學之后平均學分積下降了一個積點--"云雀"和 "知更鳥"的學分積也都有下降（這是學生從高中到大學的普遍情況）,但不會有這么多。"他們的成績不僅低于新生的平均水平，"她說，"而且他們的成績下降更多。"

    這項研究并沒有深入研究為什么夜貓子在學習成績上的表現差的細節。但佩茲卡懷疑原因可以歸結為"夜貓子"仍然按照"云雀"的時間表生活。那些晚睡的學生仍然早起上課，這意味著他們最終往往在白天感覺很困倦，警覺性降低。事實上，在佩茲卡的研究，"夜貓子"比其他的學生們每晚少睡41分鐘，但仍早起上課，在此期間，意料之中地，他們報告嗜睡和精神無法集中，這些都導致考試期間較低的分數。

    這恰恰是美國匹茲堡大學的研究人員在對56位14歲至18歲的少年們進行研究發現的。詹妮弗。卡曾斯--心理咨詢的博士后人員，要求青少年填寫為期一周的睡眠日記，并要求在他們手腕上帶上特殊的活動監測器，記錄時學生們入睡或醒來的情況。總之，具有較差的睡眠習慣的青少年--那些在夜間睡眠時經常醒來，花很多時間賴在床上（不管它們是不是睡眠）和在早晨報告感覺疲累--獲得的成績比那些堅持規律睡眠的學生更低。

    有意思的是，卡曾斯發現不同的睡眠習慣對學生們的成績表現有不同的影響：那些在睡覺時經常醒來并報告睡眠質量很差的學生在數學表現不好，而那些在整個晚上睡得很平靜的學生容易獲得更好地英語成績，"這些發現帶來了新問題，那就是關于具體厘清影響學習的睡眠哪個過程是重要的？"卡曾斯說道，"睡眠是否對于我們處理在數學中的抽象問題更為有益？或者睡眠質量是否增加了創造性？我們不知道這些問題的答案，而且我們還不想下定論。但這些幫助我們對睡眠在日常生活中對哪些事情有益有更多的了解。"

    這兩組研究人員正在迅速指出，學習成績是許多不同的因素共同作用的結果--從智商學習習慣和努力程度，而不僅僅是睡眠--但新的研究結果表明，追求優質的睡眠肯定沒有壞處，甚至可能有助于提高您的成績。