Refresh (online sleep programme for college students)
Also: Refresh: Cornell's Online Sleep Program
An eight-week self-help programme, based on CBT for insomnia, that sends college students a weekly lesson by email on sleep habits, relaxation and sleep tracking. Developed at Stanford by Mickey Trockel and Rachel Manber, it is now offered to all students by Cornell Health as Refresh: Cornell's Online Sleep Program.
- Years
- 2011–now
- Country
- United States
- Topic
- Mental healthSleep
- Asks people to
- Start
- Strategy
- Self efficacy
- Channel
- Direct mailSchoolWebsite
- Audience
- Young adultsundergraduate, graduate and professional students
Evidence
Quasi-experimentalPositive
Students with poor sleep (PSQI>5) assigned by residence hall: Refresh improved PSQI by 2.42 points vs 0.67 for a mood programme (difference -1.75, p=0.034) and cut depressive symptoms (CES-D difference -7.20, p=0.036); no difference among good sleepers (Trockel et al., JCSM 2011). A Japanese RCT of an adapted version also found gains.
Sponsor (who paid)
- Stanford University (Trockel, Manber) Academic, creator
- Cornell Health, Cornell University Academic, runs the programme for Cornell students
Credits (who made it)
Not recorded yet.
Sources
- Refresh: Cornell's Online Sleep Program sponsor
- An e-mail delivered CBT for sleep-health program for college students: effects on sleep quality and depression symptoms evaluation · 2011 · DOI 10.5664/JCSM.1072 · PMID 21677898
Research notes
Created 2026-10-24 by an AI research pass for #103 (C1); not reviewed by a person. Start year is the first published study, not a launch date; when Cornell took it up is not known. Cornell's 'Sleep Campaigns' page returned access denied. Japanese RCT (MDPI IJERPH 2022, 19(1):186) seen in search only. To verify: 2011 start; 8 weeks; 10-20 minutes a week; PSQI and CES-D figures.
Record cases/refresh-college-sleep-program.json, updated 2026-10-24· Link to this campaign