STUDY
Imagine you go to bed at a somewhat early time and wake up at your normal time to get to school. Your first two classes go fine, but once you get to your third period you realize, you didn’t study for your test and the class seats are in rows. You sit in your spot and slowly wait for your teacher to pass the exam down the isles. Your leg is bouncing up and down and your heart is pumping. You ask yourself, ‘why didn’t I stay up to study?’
While sleep is proven to be important, there are many situations where staying up to study is actually the better decision. When students have an important test or assignment, choosing to study instead of sleep can make the difference between understanding the material and walking into class unprepared and ready to fail.
Studying late can be necessary when the material is difficult or when there is a lot to review. Even students who try to stay organized can run into challenging topics that require extra time. If a student goes to sleep instead of reviewing confusing concepts, they might walk into the test without understanding the material. Spending those extra hours studying can help strengthen memory and increase chances of doing well on the test.
The night before a test is often the last opportunity to review important material. Tests can cover weeks of lessons, and a final review session can refresh key ideas that might be forgotten. Even if someone feels tired the next morning, the comprehension they gained by studying may help them answer questions correctly. In many cases, knowing the material is more valuable than getting a few extra hours of sleep and forgetting key information.
High school schedules are extremely busy with students often balancing homework, sports, clubs, family responsibilities, and sometimes even jobs. With these commitments, the late night study session might be the only quiet time available. Real life doesn’t always allow for perfect planning. Staying up later can be a practical way to make sure everything gets done.
Sleep is unquestionably important for overall health, but there are moments when studying should take priority. When students face an important test or need more time to understand what is actually going on in their class. Staying up later to study can be a smart choice. Being prepared for a test can outweigh the temporary tiredness for one shorter night of sleep.
SLEEP
Imagine you wake up at five in the morning to study after you managed to get a couple hours of sleep during your study break. Once you get to school, you can barely keep your eyes open during first period. ‘Just make it to third period,’ you tell yourself. That’s when you have the big test. When you walk into your third period and the teacher passes out the test, your vision goes blurry and you break into a cold sweat. Why didn’t you get more sleep?
Being on your study grind is almost always a good thing, but when it’s paired with all nighters, your studying can become disastrous. It starts to become more challenging to retain information when you’re sleepy, and pushing through isn’t always a good solution. Besides, needing to stay up late to study means you’ve already done something wrong. It means you’ve procrastinated.
Most of the time, teachers understand that students’ lives can be busy, so they account for this when they assign homework or create assessments. You shouldn’t have to study the content for more than four hours if you’ve been staying consistent with homework. If you don’t understand something, it’s best to just ask the teacher for an explanation right away rather than attempting to figure it out the night before an exam.
Especially if you are a student athlete, you need to be getting good quality sleep. It’s how our bodies recover from the stress we place on them every day. If you are sitting in class using your brain for hours and hours, and then working out your hardest at practice, your body needs to reset for the next day.
Now I can even admit that there have been nights that I’ve stayed up late to complete an assignment or get some extra studying in, but the next morning I face another decision. Caffeine. It can be a slippery slope because if I don’t drink any caffeine, I risk dozing off in my classes, and if I do succumb to the craving, I can get jittery. Even worse, I become a caffeine addict, and it becomes a reward system for my late night work.
At the end of the day, the best option may be to stay up late and study, but whenever the next situation comes up, ask yourself ‘Do I really want to be tired tomorrow?’ It is possible to overdo it with studying, and if it becomes a common occurrence, the harder it is to quit the habit. You don’t want to be known as a ‘sleeper’ by your teachers. I promise, if you put down the books to go to sleep, your brain will thank you when the test comes around.
