All Harvard undergraduates are this year taking part in a pioneering course on sleep before they arrive on campus, in a bid to combat the growing culture of pulling caffeine-fuelled all-nighters.
Professor Charles Czeisler, a sleep expert at Harvard Medical School, designed the course, which he believes is the first of its kind in the United States.
He found students at the world's number one university, despite being academically gifted, are often clueless when it comes to the very basics about how to look after themselves.
Czeisler was inspired to start the course after giving a talk on the impact sleep deprivation had on learning. "At the end of it one girl came up to me and said: 'Why am I only being told this now, in my senior year'? She said no one had ever told her about the importance of sleep - which surprised me," he says.
The course, rolled out for the first time this year, explains to students how good sleep habits help academic and athletic performance, as well as improve general wellbeing.
