LAUSR

Sleep education programs are increasingly utilized in high schools and universities to address late bedtimes and poor sleep quality in students. While these programs successfully improve sleep knowledge, they often do not change sleep behaviors (e.g., bedtimes), especially during academically demanding/stressful periods. A potential method for bridging the knowledge-behavior gap in sleep is to augment sleep education with implementation intention formation (Education+II), an established goal-fulfillment strategy. We tested this intervention in a highly demanding context: students enrolled in organic chemistry classes. Undergraduate students (N=101) completed baseline questionnaires and actigraphy monitoring before completing a standardized sleep education program (Sleep 101). Afterward, participants were randomly assigned to an Education-Only condition or an Education+II condition. In the Education+II condition, using standardized if-then verbalization and visualization techniques, participants formed specific plans to go to bed earlier for the next five school nights. Participants were sent text reminders to implement their specific plans; nightly texts were also sent to Education-Only participants, but they were asked to reply with an interesting fact about sleep they learned during the education program. Participants completed questionnaires at the end of the intervention period as well as during 1-month and 7-month follow-up periods. There were significant time-dependent improvements in total sleep time, global sleep quality, mood, and perceived stress across groups, suggesting benefits of receiving sleep education. Participants in the Education+II condition demonstrated earlier bedtimes than those in the Education-Only condition during the intervention phase (both actigraphy and self-report) and at least one month later. Forming an implementation intention did not improve organic chemistry grades on a group-level, but grades in non-chemistry courses were higher in Education+II participants who maintained earlier bedtimes (a correlational pattern specific to this condition). Augmenting sleep education with implementation intentions successfully advanced bedtimes during a rigorous organic chemistry course. Implementation intentions are a no-cost technique that is easy to build into sleep education programs. Doing so will encourage individuals to turn their general intentions to get better sleep into actualizable steps that facilitate behavioral change. National Science Foundation CAREER grant (1943323).