Why student sleep should be higher up on the agenda

Beth Kerr, Cognita Global Director of Wellbeing reflects on an often forgotten aspect of learning – its connection with adequate sleep.

In all my years of working in pastoral care, the question ‘are you sleeping properly?’ was not on the top of my list when working with students who might have been struggling. Indeed, if I’m honest, it might only have come after asking to abut friendship issues, work stress, family life and more recently social media and gaming.

In discussion with Dr Walker, it was crystal clear that adequate sleep impacts every aspect of health and wellbeing. As he puts it, ‘There is no physiological system that we’ve been able to measure that isn’t enhanced by sleep when you get it, or demonstrably impaired when you don’t get enough.’

Dr Walker also emphasised how a lack of sleep impairs learning. That is because students need sleep prior to learning in order to prepare the brain for soaking up new information and laying down new memory traces. They equally need sleep after learning in order to save and embed those new memories.

You can read the full article published in Independent Schools Magazine, here.

You can further access here our free sleep resources for families, created together with sleep scientist Dr Matthew Walker.