Christopher Winter Challenged Andover students to rethink how they approach sleep.
Dr. Christopher Winter, owner of Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine (CNSM) clinic and CNSM Consulting, emphasized the effects of good quality sleep and performance for both students and athletes at All-School Meeting (ASM) last Friday. Winter highlighted sleep deprivation as a serious, yet resolvable issue.
ASM began with a Marvel-style superhero origin story, where Winter equated sleep to a superpower. Mixing light-hearted jokes with statistics and medical facts, Winter addressed the importance of sleep to wellbeing and athletic and academic performance.
“Sleepiness is an absolute disability that you can improve upon. Hitting accuracy, three-pointer percentages, they get better when you sleep better… I bet you have the capacity to be a little bit better than where you are right now. Put your phone away a little earlier than you did last night. Those are the things I want you to think about,” said Winter.
Hannah Jung ’28, expressed that Winter’s speech changed her mindset toward sleep. She recalled her previous sleep schedules in different environments and the effect of her sleep on her mental and physical health.
“He made me think about sleep in a different way. I’m on the end that sleeps more at Andover. I average about eight and a half to nine hours. When he talked about quality sleep being better than quantity of sleep, it made me realize that I shouldn’t be worrying about just one night of sleep, [rather that] I should focus on how I could improve the quality of my sleep,” said Jung.
Towards the end of ASM, Winter gave the audience an Epworth Sleep Test (ESS), a self-test to determine whether an individual has inadequate or dysfunctional sleep. Gavin Freeman ’26, who took part in this self-test, reflected on how it challenged his preconceived notions about sleep.
“I previously thought everyone needs eight hours. It raises a lot of questions about the fact that the average student at Andover definitely does not get how much [sleep] they should require. It raises a lot of questions about workload and the effect on the students. I might seek out a sleep professional because I sleep eight and a half [hours], and I scored a fourteen on the test. So, from what he was telling us, [hours slept and performance] don’t correlate greatly,” said Freeman.
Winter offered concrete suggestions on improving your sleep habits, including keeping phones away from your bed and napping during the day. Caroline Weinmann ’27 felt inspired to improve her sleeping habits after hearing Winter’s talk.
“I’m going to try to put my phone down a lot earlier and start reading some physical books before bed to decrease that blue light screen time. If I put my phone down more often, then I’ll have more time to finish my homework early, and that will also help me sleep earlier,” said Weinmann.
Christian Estrada ’27 introduced Winter at ASM and has conducted sleep research at the University of Pennsylvania and The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He shared how Winter’s speech connected to his own interest in this relatively-overlooked research field.
“I got to hear about his own journey with sleep science and take that approach onto my own journey,” said Estrada. “Sleep is a very under-researched field [and] affects the country economically and the health of a lot of different people in our communities. There’s something about how sleep impacts the GDP of countries by around two percent, so in the U.S. that’s like 400 billion dollars. What interests me about it is that my knowledge in it can make an impact on real people and contribute to an [underdeveloped] area.”
Dr. Amy Patel, Dean of Health and Wellness and Chief Medical Officer, highlighted the concerns around campus regarding sleep, and offered support and advice to approach improving rest.
“I really want students to know that if they are wanting to have a conversation about their sleep, I would love to have that conversation with them and we can figure out a plan for them so that we can help them sleep better… My version of it is progress over perfection. To try to win sleep is not helpful. It just increases anxiety or challenges with sleep,” said Patel.
