I recently came across a fantastic presentation from neuroscientist Russell Foster, posing the question; Why do we sleep?
Thirty-six percent of our lives are spent asleep, which means if you live to 90, you’ll have slept for 32 years. According to Foster, however, we don’t appreciate sleep enough. He quotes Thomas Edison, “Sleep is a criminal waste of time, inherited from our cave days” and Margaret Thatcher — “Sleep is for wimps.” Simply put, says Foster, not only do we not appreciate sleep, but we treat it like an illness and the enemy. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Fact of the matter is, if you are not getting enough sleep, you’re doing yourself an absolute disservice.
The relevance to our students here at IFS? Neuroscientists are now learning that when we are asleep, areas in the brain responsible for creating new synapses and neural connections are most active, meaning complex tasks learned through the day in the classroom and on the football field are consolidated and hard wired into our memory centres. Studies show that if you prevent people from sleeping after a learning task, their ability to learn is basically smashed. In addition, our interpretation of events may be affected. We lose our ability to make sound decisions because we can no longer accurately assess the situation, plan accordingly, and choose the correct behaviour. (Sounds a bit like our PDE process in football).
So how much sleep do we need?
Adults, on average, require 8-9 hours of sleep to function optimally. Adolescents and teens, however, actually require up to an hour more sleep. How many of our students are consistently sleeping 9-10 hours per night? If they aren’t, they’re not giving themselves the best opportunity to learn, both in the classroom and on the football field.
So tonight, turn off the TV, switch off the mobile phone and Ipad and get yourself some sleep.
Joey says
Another pearl of wisdom, thank you Professor Porter