Sleep provides necessary tools that allow people to function properly but one huge result of adequate amounts of sleep is the ability to learn (sleepfoundation.org). The amount of sleep that people and minors specifically obtain nightly has declined in the last few years. According to the American Physical Therapy Association, “high school students who reported getting sufficient sleep dropped from 30.9% to 27.3% between 2009 and 2015.”
Some sources, such as Turmerry Serving Pure Living, believe this is because of the increased amounts of screen time that keep people awake at night scrolling on endless pages of social media accounts. Other sources, such as the National Library of Medicine, state that it is because of the increase in popularized caffeinated drinks. There are many other possibilities and it most definitely varies with each person, but the important aspect is how sleep does affect education and ways to increase sleep.
Firstly, sleep for students is essential if students plan on having the ability to properly absorb information and have their maximum amount of academic performance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported how receiving proper amounts of sleep, “helps [students] stay focused, improve concentration, and improve academic performance.”
Sleep allows people to process information. According to NIH News in Health, how sleep allows people to strengthen their memory because it is metaphorically recharging peoples’ brains. The fact is that education and trying to comprehend foreign information is a struggle for anyone but if a student is not getting adequate amounts of sleep each night then it makes their ability to try and learn nearly an impossible task.
They can’t function properly and perform their full academic potential if their brain and its functions haven’t been recharged in not only the previous night but also for many nights in a row. A study by Carnegie Mellon University found that “students who get less than 6 hours of sleep experienced a pronounced decline in academic performance,” displaying how the two are directly correlated.
While these statistics and facts about how sleep is necessary for performance in education and even all aspects of life may seem daunting for those who have a hard time receiving proper amounts of sleep, many solutions work for improving sleep.
The first one is turning all devices and screens off one hour before trying to sleep, as recommended by Sutter Health. This is a fantastic way to shut out the world and focus purely on rest. Countless reports, such as one done by Adventist Health, have proven how anxiety and restlessness are directly correlated with the amount of time spent on screens. Removing devices before going to sleep will as a result lead to those anxieties also being removed. Another solution is breathing exercises or meditation as recommended by Sleep Foundation.
One popular tactic is inhaling as one traces their fingers upward and exhaling as one traces their finger downwards and for this to work the process must be repeated for the entire duration of a person’s hand. These are just two solutions that can benefit people receiving the necessary amounts of rest and therefore give students who aren’t receiving the proper amount of sleep better rest for a better education.
Sleep is linked to countless valuable aspects that make up peoples’ lives and education is one of the most important links and that is why people should work to improve the amount of sleep they receive. It will overall benefit an individual’s life by creating these habits that better their rest and therefore benefit their educational career.
