Dear students, you need quality sleep.

Most times, a student could stay up late at night, not because they are studying or preparing for a test. The time for getting a quality sleep is often being wasted on social media, mobile games YouTube, and on Netflix watching episodes back-to-back.

The next day in class, such students might have difficulties in concentration after few minutes of lectures as they often feel tired and lost due to sleep deprivation the previous night.

On the flipside, most students underrates the value of sleep while preparing for examination. You'd see students openly boast of how they would stay up all night trying to read up a course material. Infact some students resort to taking stimulants such as a strong coffee, kolanuts and energy drinks at intervals during the night in a bid to keep sleep at bay while reading.

Sometimes a student might begin to have a headache due to an overwhelmed brain, and instead of taking the much needed rest, he or she would rather take a pain relievers.

What these students don't realize is that sleep is a function of the brain and if you deprive your brain from it's much needed sleep, it might not be able to function optimally, thereby leading to chaos and disorganization sooner than later.

I have heard about students who had to struggle with the spelling of simple words like "particular", "environment", "process" etc while writing an exam . Contrary to popular belief, this is not always due to examination anxiety.

I know of a friend who totally blanked out in the middle of a presentation in front of her HOD and other lecturers in the department. Not because she was not intelligent enough but due to agitation and stress caused by sleep deprivation. She was unable to recall vital information since she hadn't given her brain the much needed time to recharge through sleep.

Coupled with nervousness which further excites the brain, poor quality sleep might cause a student to make silly mistakes in the examination hall. The muscles of your eyes are tired, especially the cilliary muscle which is responsible for maintaining focus is weakened. Consequently a student might start having blurring or overlapping visions while reading the questions. This results in the eyes giving wrong perception to the brain which would ofcourse interprete the information wrongly. Hence a student might only realize his mistakes or what he didn't do correctly after coming out of the examination and start discussing the questions with other students. This could lead to regrets or even depression.

Personally, I make sure I get enough sleep before I even open any book . Even though I sometimes skip my meals, I never delay sleep. Infact, the best time I absorb and understand knowledge is when I wake up from sleep. Even if the exam is less than 24 hours from now, I would still have at least four hours of sleep.

Lastly, the reason why most students tend to look older is as a result of poor sleeping habits which leads to the drop in collagen. Collagen is an important protein which is regularly metabolised and released by the skin during sleep. It responsible for the production of new and healthy skin cells after the older ones impregnated by keratin wears away.

Honestly, reading till day break is overrated

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Thanks for reading 😁♥️