Here are 10 tips to make sure that an otherwise healthy child gets the quality of sleep necessary to perform well in school.*? Decide upon a regular time for going to bed and try not to vary this time by more than a few minutes from one day to the next.*? Avoid the temptation to take a nap after school. Should you find that you are so tired that you cannot keep your eyes open then go ahead and take a nap but for no more than 45 minutes or an hour.*? Despite the fact that teenagers will often spend a great deal of time in their bedroom and turn it into much more of a 'living' than a 'sleeping' room, avoid using the bed for anything other than sleeping. Do not sit in bed, playing games, reading, writing, watching TV or anything else but reserve it only for sleeping so that your body associates climbing into bed with going to sleep.*? When it comes to bedtime make sure that the bedroom is quiet, dark and cool. Do not shut your bedroom up, turn up the heat and get into bed to watch TV. Instead, turn the heating down, open the window a little if possible to let in some fresh air and make the room as dark as possible.*? Do not eat a heavy meal too close to bedtime. You obviously should not go to bed hungry and having a light snack prior to bedtime is okay, however going to bed on a full stomach will make it difficult to get to sleep and affect your quality of sleep.*? Should you find that you cannot get to sleep within say 15 minutes of getting into bed then do not merely lie in bed trying to sleep, as the harder you try the harder it will become. Instead, get up and do something like listening to some relaxing music or reading a book. As soon as you start to feel tired, get back into bed and you should fall asleep in next to no time.*? Avoid strenuous exercise within several hours of bedtime. If you wish to play baseball or engage in other sporting or strenuous activities then do these shortly after school and not an two or three hours before bedtime.*? Avoid the temptation to stay up late finishing homework or preparing for a test. Despite the fact that this might seem like the solution to a particular problem in the short term, and might keep you out of trouble for handing in your homework late or get you through a test, in the long run your performance will fall and any shorter term benefits will soon be lost.*? Stay away from any form of drink that contains caffeine after about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. This of course means coffee and tea, but also extends to chocolate drinks and colas.*? Make sure that you get up at the same time in the morning, whether or not it is a school day. Teenagers usually get up late on weekends and in the school holidays and, rather than helping to make you feel better, this simply disrupts your sleep pattern.



Follow these 10 tips and within next to no time the quality of your sleep will improve, you will feel much more awake and active during the day and your grades will improve.