Students are often advised to get a good night of sleep before a test, but is there any merit to this advice? Studies on how sleep can affect academic performance suggest yes, and even more, good sleep should be a priority not only before tests but every school night.
Getting enough sleep helps students arrive at school ready to expand their knowledge by focusing, remembering, keeping up, and following instructions. To set yourself up with the greatest capacity to learn, you must prioritize your sleep.
How Does Sleep Help Academic Performance?
Sleep can be a student’s secret weapon to a more successful day at school; here are 6 reasons why sleep can help academic performance and set students up for success.
Keeps Up Your Focus
Studies have shown that attention and focus take a hit when people do not get enough sleep. You may find that you miss things when you’re tired, and you have a harder time keeping your attention on one topic. For students, this can equate to a wandering mind during class and an inability to get the assigned work done.
In good news, research shows that attention can be restored after sleep.
Supports Good Memory
During sleep, your brain strengthens the memories you formed during the day while also linking new memories to older ones, allowing you to recall information faster. When students sleep, their brain holds onto what they learned during the day rather than letting it go.
The non-REM stages of sleep, specifically, help prime the brain for good learning the following day; those who don’t get enough sleep can see up to a 40% decline in their ability to learn new things.
Allows You to Keep Up
Have you ever felt like you’re walking through molasses the day after a late night? This same delay can be seen in students who don’t get enough sleep, making it hard to keep up with the information given to them. Their mind is still processing one thing while the teacher moves on to something new, resulting in them missing out on key information.
Research has shown that reaction time slows after just one night of too-little sleep, let alone if you continually miss your sleep needs. These delays in processing can affect your performance in school when you cannot keep up with your peers.
Allows You to Remember Instructions
Teachers often give their students a set of instructions, whether it’s the steps needed to solve a problem or perform an experiment or a set of instructions for what their next assignment is. However, when sleep impacts memory and focusing ability, it also affects the ability of a student to remember these steps. This can slow your progress through an assignment or cause you to need more help from a teacher than you would need if you were fully rested.
Boosts Creativity
Creativity can be a vital component of school, whether it’s coming up with an idea for an art project, a fictional idea for a short story, or problem-solving approaches. Sleep has been shown to enhance creativity, which can then set students up for a successful day at school.
Supports Mood and Behavior
Beyond academic skill sets, mood and behavior can also impact a day at school and hinder a student’s ability to reach their fullest academic potential. For example, excessive sleepiness during the day may cause you to doze off and miss instruction. Poor sleep can also result in poor decision-making and aggression, which can lead to disciplinary problems, again detracting from academics.
Sleep Traits to Focus on For Better School Days
Saying that sleep is important for a good day at school is a broad statement—to narrow it down, it helps to know what sleep qualities to focus on.
Research has shown that three factors of sleep—quality, duration, and consistency—are all associated with better academic performance.
Quality of sleep refers to how restful the sleep is. For instance, those who wake up multiple times during the night do not achieve as high a quality of sleep. One of the key indicators for this factor is how much deep sleep you get, as deep sleep is responsible for repairing muscle, strengthening the immune system, and leaving you refreshed come morning. If you wake up frequently during the night, you may not be getting as much deep sleep as you need.
As for sleep duration, the requirements can vary by age and by child. The recommendations are:
- Preschool age (3-5 years): 10-13 hours
- School-age (6-13 years): 9-12 hours
- Teenagers (14-17 years): 8-10 hours
Typically, children require less sleep as they age, but it’s all too common for children, and especially teenagers, to fall short of these requirements. Extracurriculars and increasing workloads may cause you to push back your bedtime, keeping you from meeting your sleep needs. In order to improve school performance, though, sleep duration must be a priority.
The final sleep trait to focus on is consistency. Getting poor sleep all through the week cannot be erased by extra sleep on the weekend. The body requires consistency and, especially when it comes to academic performance, good sleep all week, not just on the weekend.
Prioritizing these three factors—quality, duration, and consistency—can improve your academic performance by ensuring your mind and body are ready to learn.
Sleep Well Tonight, Succeed at School Tomorrow
When it comes to setting yourself up for success at school, the key lies in ensuring you get enough sleep at night. When you’re well-rested, you can focus better, remember what you learn, keep up with your class, follow instructions, and come up with creative solutions to problems. It also ensures you are in the right mood for a good day at school.
Despite the importance of sleep, many people do not get enough. To ensure you’re ready for school the next day, be sure to prioritize your sleep needs. Find out how much sleep you need, and then go to bed early enough to meet these sleep needs. Sometimes, this may mean rescheduling extracurriculars so that you’re not out too late.
Once you get enough sleep each night, you’ll have an easier time at school; if you once dreaded going, you may even start to look forward to it.
