Sleep helps students thrive

Sleep is an important process for students and teachers to recover from a long day’s work. Many know it should be valued due to its apparent ability to fight sleep deprivation. However, more benefits make it useful in all areas of their school day.
One of the main benefits of getting enough sleep is its ability to support memory. Students are tasked with remembering information like new formulas, procedures, and important events. They must be able to apply their knowledge in tests and other assessments. Sleep helps students solidify what they learn to help them rely more on their memory to better succeed in school. For example, a study by MIT suggested that higher quality sleep was associated with better grades recall, according to Stanford Lifestyle Medicine. Moreover, it found that a quarter of the difference in overall academic achievement between students was caused by sleep. Another study found that not getting enough sleep could drop learning ability as much as 40%, according to News In Health. Junior Kaden Mason adds that insufficient sleep inhibits him from fully focusing, making him more prone to daydreaming and dozing off. As such, sleep deprivation is damaging to students and should be avoided by getting a full night’s rest.
Sleep also helps students recover from and continue to play sports. Rest is vital for maintaining peak performance in sports. For example, SleepFoundation states that sufficient sleep improves athletic performance in accuracy, reaction time, and power, while sleep insufficiency decreases precision and response times and increases the chance of injury. Kaden has a similar experience because he often has less energy when sleep deprived. It causes him more difficulty learning new techniques, honing in, and focusing on his training. In the long run, the potential of his time training and exercising is hindered. Therefore, sleep is one of the best ways to improve exercise performance in sports.
For more information, visit https://longevity.stanford.edu/lifestyle/2024/01/10/sleep-and-academic-excellence-a-deeper-look/, https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2013/04/sleep-it, https://www.sleepfoundation.org/physical-activity/athletic-performance-and-sleep.