How many hours of sleep did you get a night when you were in nursing school?

Nursing Students General Students Nursing Q/A

Nursing school is demanding. Students often report they are struggling with sleep due to the heavy course load, clinical placements, and studying requirements.

My friend says she only gets about 4-5 hours of sleep a night while in NS. I can't function without a minimum of 6-7 hours of sleep and am starting to get nervous and think that maybe I should start training my body to get less sleep (if thats even possible for me).

Have you experienced this while in nursing school? How many hours of sleep did you get per night?

If you're not getting sleep I'd suggest working on some time management skills. I was in nursing school 4 years ago, I have two young children (they were 5 and 7 at the time) and a supportive husband. I had the advantage that I did not work so was able to focus my spare time entirely on school and I got about 10 hours of sleep a night, less on nights when I'd get caught up in playing Bioshock or Fatal Frame on my Xbox.

If you're working full time in addition to school, I guess you should be happy for 6!

I gotta say BRAVO!! I'm impressed girl!! Being that I'm new to the nursing school game, and am learning alot already, can you give any pointers to us newbs? I wanna be able to play Wii at the end of the day, lol. Right now I am up at 5:30 to get myself and the kids fed and ready, and deliver the kids to their schools. We leave the house at 7 am. When I get out of class I head straight home and have 1 hour to eat lunch at home and straighten or do a couple chores before pickin up my son at 2 and then over to get in carpool line where I chat with my son about his day and then read or review for the next 30 mins. I head back home if I have no errands and get the kids a snack and do their homework. Then I go right into preping for dinner and preparing things for the next morning and any chores that need to be started or done or finished. We do dinner then we do baths and clean up the dinner mess. After that, about 7ish, I start my homework. That lasts until I stop and take a little time for ME! Then I go to sleep and do it all over again the next day. Except for Wedns cause I have church....that's a whole different scenario.

Pre-nursing school I slept 8-9 hours. Now I've learned to function very well on 6.

7 hours most nights. I'm 41 so I really can't pull all-nighters any more, they make me useless the next day.

Specializes in ICU.

Usually between 6-8. I used to think that if I didn't get at least 7 hours of sleep the night before that I would be dragging the whole next day. I've now learned that 6 hours here and there really isn't a problem for me. I had a professor who said he couldn't sleep more than 5 hours each night or he would feel groggy the next day. I wish I had that problem! I can just imagine all the stuff I could get down with that extra 2-3 hours ;)

Since I worked full time nights, I averaged 5-6 hours. That was if my kids didn't need running around after school or if there wasn't other events going on.

Specializes in oncology, med/surg, ortho.

The first two weeks I got about 4 hours of sleep a night and then realized that it wasn't doing me any good. I learned to manage my time better and started to get 6 to 7 hours of sleep a night. Like the other said, it did me know good on a test if I only got 4 hours of sleep.

Specializes in Telemetry.

I slept for 4 hours/day for two years,now, I do not know what to do with myself because I am out of school and studying for NCLEX.

Specializes in General adult inpatient psychiatry.

I got 4-6 and tried my hardest to take advantage of naps when I could and sleep more on the nights before I had tests. Care plans kept me up late sometimes, but I tried my best to not let it get the best of me and eventually found a rhythm.

Specializes in None.

Not including clinical days usually 6-8 hrs depending on the workload for the day. I personally cant do all nighter's, my body and mind will reject all information learned. Now on clinical nights, sometimes if I have ALOT of drug cards sometimes 3.5-4 hrs, which I hate!! Once I get home I try to run to the bed lol

About 5-6 I found that if I get any less I don't retain any information! However people in my clinical run on about 1 hour of sleep. now maybe they are exaggerating but I find that ridiculous!

Specializes in Community, OB, Nursery.

I averaged about 4-7, but generally once a week I'd crash and sleep for 10-11 hours.

Specializes in Psych ICU, addictions.
About 5-6 I found that if I get any less I don't retain any information! However people in my clinical run on about 1 hour of sleep. now maybe they are exaggerating but I find that ridiculous!

I admit to having gone to class/clinical on 2 hours of sleep on the rare occasion, usually because I had a ton of clinical paperwork to do and was up late finishing it. With enough coffee, I made it through the day...but usually crashed the minute I got home. I couldn't last on so little sleep for prolonged periods, though.

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