10 Tips To Help Prevent Sleep Problems From Causing Bad Grades
Sep 29, 2008 Children Sleep Problems
It has been felt for some time now that too little or low quality sleep in teenagers leads to a drop in grades at school, however it was not until quite recently that a research study confirmed that teens with poor sleeping habits do in fact suffer from lower grades.
Here are 10 simple tips to make sure that an otherwise healthy child does not suffer from sleep problems and gets the level of sleep needed to do well in school.
1. Decide upon a regular time for going to bed and try not to vary this by more than a few minutes from day to day.
2. Make sure that you get up at the same time each morning, regardless of whether or not it is a school day. Teenagers commonly have a lie-in at the weekends and during school holidays and, rather than helping to make you feel better, this just disrupts your sleep pattern.
3. If you find that you are unable to get to sleep within approximately 20 minutes of climbing into bed then do not merely lie in bed trying to get to sleep, as the more you try the more difficult it will get. As an alternative, get up and do something like reading a book or listening to some relaxing music. As soon as you start to feel tired, climb back into bed and you should fall asleep in next to no time.
4. Do not be tempted to stay up late doing homework or getting ready for a test. Although this may appear to be the solution to a particular problem in the short term, and may keep you out of trouble for turning your homework in late or get you through a test, in the longer run your overall performance will fall and any shorter term gain will quickly be lost.
5. Do not be tempted to take a nap in the afternoon school. Should you find that you are so tired you cannot keep your eyes open then go ahead and take a nap but for no more than an hour.
6. Do not consume any type of drink that contains caffeine after 3 o’clock in the afternoon. This of course means tea and coffee, but also includes chocolate drinks and colas.
7. Do not eat a heavy meal close to going to bed. You obviously should not go to bed feeling hungry and having a light snack prior to bedtime is fine, but climbing into bed on a full stomach can make it difficult to fall asleep and affect your quality of sleep.
8. Although teenagers will sometimes spend a lot of time in their bedroom and turn it into more of a 'living' than a 'sleeping' room, avoid using the bed for anything other than sleeping. Do not sit in bed reading, writing, playing games, watching TV or anything else but keep it only for sleeping so that your body associates climbing into bed with going to sleep.
9. Avoid strenuous exercise within several hours of bedtime. If you want to play baseball or engage in other sporting or strenuous activities then do these shortly after finishing school and not an two or three hours before you go to bed.
10. When it comes to bedtime see that your bedroom is quiet, dark and cool. Do not close your bedroom up, turn up the heat and get into bed to watch TV. Rather, turn the heating down, open the window a bit if possible to allow in some fresh air and have the room as dark as possible.
Follow these 10 tips and within no time at all your quality of sleep will improve, you will feel much more awake and active during the day and your grades will improve.
Tags: Insomnia, sleep disorder, sleep problems
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