Should I Sleep Or Should I Laugh To Improve My GPA
Many have said that “laughter is the best medicine” but is laughter the best way for people to improve their grade point average? There had been many studies giving evidence that humor is the best way to improve a student’s performance in a classroom, yet, there have also been many studies giving evidence that sleep is the best way to improve a student’s performance in a classroom. Both sleep and humor have positive influences when it comes to improving academic performance, but overall, sleep is known to be more effective when it comes to for example getting a higher score on an exam or even being more engaged in a class discussion. When humor is used properly in a classroom, it can improve a student’s communication skills with the teacher as well as a student’s motivation in the classroom. However, sleep is known to improve a student’s overall performance due to the fact that sleep is known to improve more abilities needed in order to excel in an academic environment. Sleep is better than laughter at improving academic performance, because sleep better improves a person’s alertness, memory, and ability to reduce stress.
Sleep is better than laughter at improving alertness. It is important to remain alert in a classroom when a student is trying to improve their academic performance, because alertness is essential in order to remain focused. More evidence had been found stating that sleep better improves alertness rather than laughter or humor. There are many factors of alertness that are essential to remaining alert in a classroom such as being less fatigued and having motivation.
One factor of alertness that sleep can improve of which humor cannot improve is the ability to reduce fatigue. An individual cannot remain alert if they are suffering from fatigue or exhaustion. Fatigue is known to be a major issue in a majority of middle schools, high schools, and colleges recently. According to Mizuno, Tanaka, Fukuda, Yamano, Shigihara, Imai-Matsumura, and Wantanabe, (2011), “Up to 8% of children and adolescents have experienced fatigue for more than one month, and nearly 2% have experienced chronic fatigue lasting more than six months”(para. 5). Fatigue can affect a student’s way of processing important information as well as a student’s ability to pay attention. With more sleep at night, a student will suffer less from exhaustion as well as suffer less from fatigue throughout a typical school day.
Lack of motivation is known to be a negative effect of fatigue. Having motivation is essential to remaining alert, because an individual is not alert if they are not motivated and are not willing to pay attention, and remain focused. A study was done in order to observe the relationship between school performance, sleep, and motivation(social jetlag). According to Roeser, Kübler, and Schlarb(2013), “Students, who are oriented toward learning goals, exhibit functional cognitions, emotions and behavior; they also utilize beneficial attribution styles, which affect performance positively. Contrary to our expectations, chronotypes did not significantly differ in achievement motivation, they did not differentially approach or avoid performance”(839). It had been confirmed that students who receive more sleep tend to give more effort in their performance which would obviously lead to them eventually receiving higher grades. In order to improve alertness, sleep is beneficial when it comes to reducing fatigue as well as increasing motivation.
When it comes to improving a student’s memory, sleep is more effective than laughter or humor. More evidence had been found confirming that sleep better improves a person’s memory through a variety of different studies. There are many people that wonder why teens and children need more sleep than adults. Many have concluded that maybe it’s just that teens and children
need to learn more about the world around them. In order to learn more at school, students obviously have to use their memory. Studies state that memory is processed in the brain while a person is sleeping. In “Off to night school: one of sleep’s most important functions is processing memory. Researchers are now starting to figure out how the brain helps us learn when we’re asleep,” Kerry Smith discusses how while we are sleeping, the hippocampus(the region of the brain that stores memory)\ sends information to other parts of the brain(2013). A student uses their memory many times throughout a school day whether it’s remembering to complete an assignment or whether it’s memorizing important information for an exam.
One way a student uses their memory (of which sleep improves) is by remembering to do a certain task that was assigned to them. In the human brain, sleep affects the region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex which controls an individual’s prospective memory. A study was done on both youth and adult participants to observe the relationship between sleep deprivation and prospective memory. In this experiment, both youth and adult participants were randomly divided into two groups. One group was sleep deprived while the other was not sleep deprived. The participants were then asked to perform a series of tasks based on their memory as their results were being recorded. Bayen and Horn(2014) concluded while discussing the study that “sleep deprivation reduced PM performance independently of PM task focality”(5). Receiving more sleep improves a student’s ability to remember to perform an assigned task which is an important ability to have in order to succeed academically.
While an individual is asleep, the brain is known to process important information, which makes memorizing information for a class easier. For example, evidence had been found stating that getting enough sleep the night before an exam in a class will help a student perform better rather than staying up all night studying before the exam. Getting enough sleep is better for retaining information rather than studying all night long (Hershner and Chervin, 2014, para. 11). Sleep is better at processing memory unlike staying up until the crack of dawn stressfully trying to memorize information.
When it comes to reducing stress, sleep is a better method rather than laughter. Stress and depression are major issues in many schools due to students struggling from anxiety and cracking under too much pressure as well as just being unhappy in general. Humor is also known
to reduce stress, but more evidence and studies have been found confirming that sleep is the best method for an individual to reduce stress. There are many reasons why sleep is better at reducing stress than humor including the fact that students who are sleep deprived usually suffer from more stress and students who get more sleep usually have better moods.
A reason why sleep is known to reduce stress in a classroom is due to the fact that when a student does not get enough sleep(or in other words be sleep deprived) they usually suffer from more stress and then more than likely performs poorly.“The Interaction Between Sleep Quality and Academic Performance” K. Ahrberg, M. Dressler, S. Niedermaier, A. Steiger, and L. Genzel, (2012) discusses how poor sleep quality, stress, and poor grades correlate to one another. The article states that according to a survey that was done, students who performed poorly on an exam suffered from poor sleep quality which was caused by more stress. Sleep is a good coping mechanism for anyone who is dealing with stress or depression.
Sleep can also reduce a student’s stress by improving a student’s mood. According to a study, “Increased total sleep in teenagers has also been shown to improve mood. When school start time was delayed by 30 minutes, fewer students rated themselves as ‘at least somewhat unhappy or depressed’. As sleep may be a modifiable risk factor for depression, further research is needed on ways to improve sleep and sleep quality in depressed subjects”(Bayen and Horn, 2014, para. 36). While excessive amounts of sleep can be considered symptoms of depression, receiving more sleep can help a student become more happy and refreshed which will lead to the student feeling less depressed. A major obstacle for a student who is trying to improve their academic performance is stress and depression. More sleep will lead to less stress as well as improvement in a student’s mood and overall well being.
Some may say that laughter or humor is the best way to improve academic performance among a variety of students. The use of humor in a classroom has many benefits. Having a teacher use humor in their teaching style is known for improving communication between the teacher and the student. Humor mainly is known to improve a teacher’s teaching style rather than a student’s learning style. According to an article, “enthusiastic instructors spend time thinking about ways to present course information in creative, interesting, and positive ways that will be memorable for students in many years to come”(Lei, Cohen, and Russler, 2010, 331). Also using humor in a classroom will create a more comfortable learning space for the student. Even though humor has it’s benefits when it comes to improving relationships in a classroom, sleep improves the quality of a student’s effort when trying to learn. Sleep positively affects more factors of a student’s academic performance compared to laughter or humor which includes alertness, memory, and improving the student’s overall well being by reducing the student’s stress. When it comes to improving academic performance, receiving proper rest and sleep is important, because sleep benefits a student emotionally, physically, and mentally.
Bibliography
Ahrberg, K., Dressler, M., Niedermaier, S., Steiger, A., Genzel, L., (2012). The interaction
Between sleep quality and academic performance. Journal Of Psychiatric Research, 46,
1618–1622.
Grundgeiger, T., Bayen, U., Horn, S., (2014). Effects of sleep deprivation on prospective
memory. Memory, 22, 679–686.
Hershner, S., Chervin, R., (2014). Causes and consequences of sleepiness among college
students. PubMed Central, 6, 73–84.
Lei, S., Cohen, J., Russler, K., (2010). Humor on Learning in the College Classroom:
Evaluating Benefits and Drawbacks From Instructors’ Perspectives. Journal Of
Instructional Psychology, 37, 326–331.
Mizuno, K., Tanaka, M., Fukuda, S., Yamano, E., Shigihara, Y., Imai-Matsumura, K., and
Wantanabe, Y., (2011). Low visual information-processing speed and attention are
predictors of fatigue in elementary and junior high school students. Behavioral and Brain
Functions, 7, 20.
Smith, K., (2013). Off to night school: one of sleep’s most important functions is processing
memory. Researchers are now starting to figure out how the brain helps us learn when
we’re asleep. Nature, 497, S4.
