A study relates the hours of sleep and physical activity out of school with academic achievement in elementary school. We tell you why they are so important.
Educate our children in the practice of healthy habits is not only a way to ensure their present and future welfare. Some of them like to practice sport regularly or adequate rest at night helps them perform better in school. This is reflected in an investigation, in which for the first time have been taken into account together these two elements, which hitherto used to be analyzed separately.
Sleep and sport has a positive influence on school performance, but to what extent? How many hours? Here we have all the keys in this study.
The importance of sleep and sleep well
Learning in children and adolescents, getting enough sleep is essential, and although not all need the same, both medical experience as previous studies have shown that it is recommended that children between 5 and 10 years sleep a minimum of 9- 10 hours each night, in order to maintain an optimal state of concentration and alertness during the day.
This is not ideal, but in reality, some data collections alert us that 45% of children sleep less than 8 hours a day. Excessive demands by parents to scholastic level as a sporting level (pressuring children to become more competitive: Among the reasons, which can be very diverse, childhood stress that can come caused by infinitude of factors is), extracurricular that are not always pleasing to the child (and lack of free time accordingly), a load of homework higher than recommended, etc.
Staying up late and getting up early is something that negatively affects us all, but especially children in their learning ability and neurobehavioral functioning (attention, motor skills, emotions, memory, etc.), so that they are sleepy in the morning and have difficulty paying attention.
Although most parents have already learned from experience, also it has been shown that if children stay up later than 10 pm, in the morning they find it much harder to get up.
Extracurricular better moving activities
A study showed that one 84.20% of elementary students performs some type of extracurricular activity with which to occupy time, acquire additional training and promoting social relations.
When this activity is sports or physical, it is associated with various benefits such as increased self-esteem, cognitive and social development, increased self-confidence and improves school skills.
Sport is also associated with reduced stress, depression or anxiety and an increase in memory and learning, especially in subjects like Math, English and Science, giving better results when physical activity moderately performed, and not excessive.
Regarding the latter, perform five extracurricular activities other is associated with negative outcomes in the same way than no activity, so you need to keep in mind that, when organizing the use of time after school, so bad it is spend as falling short.
You may also like to read another article on Srewang: What is healthy eating?
Factors to consider
This study was carried out with an initial sample of 1187 primary school pupils, from 18 schools (public and private), among which we selected only those who They are performing extracurricular activities, sleeping in their usual place of residence at least 5 days a week and who did not have sleep disturbances, leaving a final sample of 573 students.
Through questionnaires answered by parents sleep patterns-rest and extracurricular physical-sporting activities they were evaluated, and then relate them to academic results.
To classify those children who followed a pattern of inadequate rest were taken into account three factors:
- Back home after 21h three or more times a week.
- Lying down after 23h four or more times a week.
- Leaving home after 21h (accompanied by an adult) to get back in after 22: 30h two or more times a week.
Within those involving sports movement and require physical exertion, such as ballet, cycling, theater were selected, etc. also considering the number of weekly hours.
Adequate rest and sports, key activity for better school performance
The results showed that those children who are still adequate rest habits, sleeping an average of 9 hours (with a minimum of 8 hours) from Monday to Friday, get significantly higher grades in all subjects. Moreover, extra – curricular sports activity also correlates with good grades, especially in the subjects of mathematics and languages. Although generally it increases the average of all subjects, a more remarkable in those that require more attention a difference.
Top marks occur when sport is practiced moderately (between 2 and 5 hours a week), and the worst when school activities such excess (more than 5 hours per week) are performed.
In short, it is essential to find a balance in the time spent on extracurricular activities and give hours of sleep the importance they deserve, so that children can perform better in school and make the most of this learning stage. And to achieve anything better than giving us example, practicing some kind of sport and getting enough rest. So, sure the whole family wins.