Exam Week

The importance of sleep to perform well in Yearly Exams 

J.A. Collier 

As years 7 to 10 are in the middle of their exams, it is important to investigate how sleep actually affects your brain before an exam and why cramming and staying up past midnight the night before an exam may not benefit you as much as you think. 

Sleep is extremely important for teenagers to help muscles grow and reduce the chance of sickness. However, regarding brain function, sleep must be more important than you think. Most boys are guilty of pulling “all-nighters” before exams and rock up to the exams feeling like they are in the best shape for the exam as they have studied all night and know all the content now. Well, I hate to be the one to say this, but this approach for exams is not a great way to prepare. 

Firstly, sleep is important as there is nothing worse than trying to keep your eyes open in an important exam. If you go into an exam extremely tired, you are going to be much less likely to go well and all you will be thinking about is sleeping after the exam and not the content and how to formulate the best answers possible for each question. Sleep is very important so boys enter the exam feeling fresh and upbeat so they can give it their best effort and attempt to earn the best mark possible.

Secondly, sleep and your brain work together; if you don’t get enough sleep, you are severely damaging your chances of using your brain to its full potential. As you sleep, your brain forms pathways in your memory to learn and over time these pathways will be maintained, and you will remember what you have been studying. However, without sleep, this process cannot occur and essentially all your hard study will be somewhat wasted, as you aren’t forming those essential pathways to help you remember all the content in your exams.

Thirdly, without sleep, your brain will be left exhausted meaning that it cannot perform its duties as well as it should. Just like your body, your brain needs rest and if you are constantly overloading your brain and not letting it rest, it won’t be able to function as well as it should and it will be increasingly harder to concentrate and focus in exams. In the lead-up to exams, if you are constantly not getting enough sleep, then your brain will find it much harder to learn new content and you will be much more inclined to not work effectively or even not work at all. This means that your brain will not be performing as well as it should, and you will not be benefitting from the number of hours you are putting into studying. You consolidate your learning as you sleep, so it is important to get adequate sleep. 

Now the recommended amount of sleep for teenage boys is 9-9.5 hours of sleep per night and I know that this can sometimes seem unachievable. However, it is essential to try and strive for as much sleep as possible. If you can get over 8 hours of sleep per night that is perfect, and this will help you drastically with your study and your ability to retain knowledge. 

So as everyone is heading into exams, I strongly urge everyone to get the sleep they need so they can perform at the highest level possible and achieve their best. Best wishes in exams and remember to get your well-deserved sleep.