Research School Network: Sleep The silver bullet?

Education seems to be constantly on the lookout for the silver bullet that will save the day. Where is the strategic equivalent of the educational superhero who will help us to dramatically improve student performance? Such a quest has the obvious flaw that it seeks a single solution to the multi-factoral world in which we live. However, there may be something worth considering.

Evidence from the medical world would suggest that, if we could prescribe one thing to assist our students, it would be sleep. The idea of prescribing sleep may seem odd, but some of the statistical evidence is compelling.

A study undertaken in Michigan in 2014¹ focussed on the incidence of heart attacks following the changes brought about by daylight saving. Twice a year in the United States, as in the UK and a number of other countries, the amount that we sleep is directly affected by the changing of the clocks. In the spring, we gain an hour’s sleep and in the autumn we lose it. As such, it is a useful barometer for the impact that either sleep deprivation or its opposite can have.

The Michigan study found that on the Monday following the loss of an hour’s sleep, there was 24% increase in the number of heart attacks. Of itself, this figure is startling, but it was equally followed by a similar correlation in the autumn. On the first working day following the gain of an hour’s sleep, there was a 21% fall in number of heart attacks.

The researchers cannot say what the cause is: cause and correlation are not the same thing. Interestingly, the overall figures for heart attacks in the week following those changes showed no significant change. However, the figures are highly suggestive that a change in sleeping pattern can have a significant effect.

So, if sleep matters, can we do anything about it? The idea of ​‘prescription’ interests me. If doctors could prescribe sleep, it would substantially help a number of their patients, in part because the prescription is a more formal statement of intent. Could homework timetables achieve the same thing? It is an interesting thought and certainly one worth sleeping on.

Mark Woodlock
Headteacher
The Blue School, Wells

¹https://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000019

See also the EEF’s recent Teensleep pilot study: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/teensleep/