That question led researchers at the premier engineering school to an unusual line of inquiry. How well do hostel rooms on campus support a good night’s sleep?
In what is among the first such study in India, researchers at the institute are examining how hostel environment, including ventilation, temperature and humidity, affects students’ sleep quality and, in turn, their ability to concentrate in classrooms.
At the centre of the work is Professor Anubha Goel of the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Kanpur, who is approaching sleep from an angle rarely explored in India. Not through the lens of medicine or psychology, but through building design and indoor environmental quality.
“Ultimately, our aim is to generate enough data to show that the sleeping environment matters,” Goel told The Indian Express. “If we understand these connections, it can influence how future hostels and residential buildings are designed.”
“Ultimately, our aim is to generate enough data to show that the sleeping environment matters,” Goel told The Indian Express. “If we understand these connections, it can influence how future hostels and residential buildings are designed.”
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The idea for the research emerged unexpectedly during an earlier campus study on classroom ventilation, conducted by one of Goel’s research students about four years ago. Students participating in that study were asked to report how alert or tired they felt at the beginning of a class, and again after an hour.
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“Not surprisingly, students in poorly ventilated classrooms reported feeling sleepy or less attentive by the end of the lecture,” Goel said. “But what caught our attention were the students who said they already felt tired even before the class began.”
That observation prompted a new question. Were hostel conditions affecting how well students slept at night?
When the researchers reviewed existing literature, they found that while international studies had examined the relationship between sleep and environmental conditions, similar work had not been carried out in India.
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At that stage, Goel reached out to Professor Pawel Wargocki of the Department of Environmental and Resource Engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, widely regarded as one of the foremost international authorities on indoor environmental quality and its impact on human health.
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Wargocki agreed to collaborate with the IIT Kanpur team and has since been guiding the research alongside Goel. The researchers first conducted a survey-based study involving over 500 students living in hostels on the IIT Kanpur campus, using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a widely used tool to measure sleep quality.
Apart from standard PSQI queries, the questionnaire also asked students about their hostel room conditions, including ventilation, temperature, humidity and whether windows were typically kept open. Nearly 70 per cent of the surveyed students reported poor sleep quality.
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According to Goel, environmental factors such as hot weather, humidity, poor ventilation and closed windows leading to stuffy air appeared to play a role.
The findings were published in November 2025 in the peer-reviewed journal ‘Building and Environment’ in a paper titled “Exploring the Environmental Determinants of Sleep Quality: A Questionnaire-Based Pilot Study in Indian University Dormitories.” The paper was authored by Asmita Adya, Goel and Professor Wargocki, with Adya, who is a senior PhD student at IIT Kanpur, serving as the lead author.
But the researchers say that the study was only the starting point. A second study, currently under preparation for publication, goes a step further by combining real-time measurements of indoor environmental conditions with objective sleep data.
In that study, about 140 IIT Kanpur students participated, with sensors recording environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity and ventilation conditions in hostel rooms. At the same time, students wore smartwatches that tracked their sleep patterns, allowing researchers to examine how environmental conditions correlate with sleep quality.
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Alongside this work, the team is also conducting a year-long investigation into seasonal impacts on sleep quality, which is currently in the stage of data analysis. The aim, Goel said, is to generate large-scale empirical evidence across different seasons and living conditions, something that has rarely been attempted in the Indian context.
Sleep quality, she added, has a direct bearing on cognitive abilities. “If students are not sleeping well, their cognitive performance is affected. That can mean difficulty focusing during class, weaker comprehension and eventually poorer academic performance,” she said.
Traditionally, sleep has rarely been a focus of campus discussions in India, where institutions tend to emphasise academic performance. But Goel believes that conversation is beginning to change.
“There is increasing concern about students’ mental health, and many institutions are setting up support systems,” she said. “As awareness grows about the link between sleep, mental health and academic performance, sleep quality will receive more attention.”
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Once the different phases of the research are complete, the team plans to move towards testing practical interventions that could improve indoor environmental conditions in hostels, with the aim of helping students sleep better.
“Ultimately, our aim is to generate enough data to show that the sleeping environment matters,” Goel told The Indian Express. “If we understand these connections, it can influence how future hostels and residential buildings are designed.”
