Why We Sleep: How your teen can improve their memory, mood, and performance

This post was originally published on July 9, 2020, and edited on July 1, 2021.

We all know we should be getting more sleep, but it often seems like more of a luxury than a necessity.

A lot of students insist that they feel just fine running on 6 or 7 hours of sleep.

It’s even become a badge of honor for high school and college students (and even adults!) to brag about how little sleep they got the night before! 

But just because we feel fine running on less sleep doesn’t mean that we don’t need a full 8 hours.

Numerous studies have shown that consistently getting less than 7 hours of sleep a night can have a major negative impact on cognitive performance, mental health, and physical well-being.

The problem is that we’re not consciously aware any of this is happening.

We know that people who drink are unaware of how impaired they are…so, it’s not safe to hand them their keys, even if they insist they’re fine.

What many people don’t realize is that the same impairment happens with sleep. In fact, one of the first things you lose when you’re sleep deprived is the awareness of how that sleep deprivation is affecting you.

When we get 6 or 7 hours of sleep every night instead of 8, we don’t feel impaired. We feel perfectly normal.

But our biology says otherwise.

The truth is that even a seemingly small difference in sleep quality and quantity can have an enormous impact on our mental and physical health and well-being. 

Matthew Walker’s book “Why We Sleep” is one of my favorite resources on the science of sleep and the powerful effects it has on virtually every area of our lives. 

In this insightful book, Walker shows how the amount and quality of sleep students get can directly impact their performance in school, mental health, athletic performance, and physical well-being.

He also shares exactly how long we can stay awake before the effects of sleep deprivation start to take effect, and why “catching up” on missed sleep over the weekend is virtually impossible.

To learn more about his research-based findings on why good sleep is so important and how to get more of it, watch the video below…

If you’re in a rush and don’t have time to check out the video, here are the most important action steps: 

Top 5 TIPS for healthy sleep

1. Be consistent – Going to sleep + waking up at the same time every day can help reduce sleep issues and enable you to get consistent high-quality sleep.
2. Avoid caffeine 8 hours before bed – Most people don’t realize that it takes so long to wear off fully. Even if you’re able to fall asleep with caffeine in your bloodstream, it can still disrupt your sleep. 
3. Dim the lights – Make sure your room is totally dark overnight; even a faint night light can disrupt sleep. Dim the lights at night to encourage your brain to wind down, and avoid bright blue light exposure from screens 1 hour before sleep.
4. Cool off – Take a hot bath or shower before bed; even washing your face can help your core body temperature drop and make it easier to sleep. Turning down the thermostat can also help; 65 degrees is the recommended temperature for optimal sleep.
5. Relax – Create an evening routine that helps you wind down before bed (light a candle, read, listen to relaxing music, journal, etc.)

Since, according to Matthew Walker, “Two-thirds of adults throughout all developed nations fail to obtain the recommended eight hours of nightly sleep,” I suspect the same is true for many of our students.

Summer is a great time to try doing an experiment to see how much sleep you and your teen really need in order to feel fully rested, by going to sleep at the same time each night and seeing what time they wake up naturally without using an alarm. 

If they have a Fitbit or another device to track sleep stages and quantify the amount of sleep they’re getting, that’s even better! Having a way to measure progress like this can help improve self-awareness and increase motivation to stick with this new habit. 

If you do get a chance to try this out at home, keep me posted on the results…I would love to hear what you all discover!

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About The Author

Dr. Maggie Wray is a certified ADHD Coach & Academic Life Coach with a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell and a Bachelor’s degree in Astrophysics from Princeton. She founded Creating Positive Futures in 2012 to help high school and college students learn how to earn better grades with less stress. Her team of dedicated coaches is on a mission to empower students to develop the mindset, organization, time management, and study skills they need to achieve their goals.