This year, OLMC has engaged Challenge Success, a research-based organisation that has been established by Stanford University in the United States. We have joined the Raising Her Voice program that Challenge Success provides. This program has a focus on the pursuit of girls’ wellbeing, engagement and belonging and includes a survey that is administered to gain data about how students at OLMC experience these facets of life at the College.
This survey was completed by our students in Term 2 and has provided us with valuable data that will help us determine what we are doing well but also what areas we can make improvements in. Staff have had an opportunity to look at these survey results and during this term, focus groups of students from Year 7-11 will be having discussions with staff to further unpack some of this data.
One of the questions asked students to identify what elements of their life give them stress. Students nominated assessments, grades, managing workload and homework tasks as their top stresses. After this, the next big stress for students was not getting enough sleep, with 52% of students nominating this as a stressful part of their lives.
The Better Health Channel, a resource put together by the Victorian Government, provides a number of tips to improve sleep hygiene. Some of these tips include:
- Get up at the same time every day, even on weekends. Soon this strict routine will help to ‘set’ and maintain the timing of your body clock and you’ll find yourself getting sleepy at about the same time every night.
- Don’t ignore tiredness. Go to bed when your body tells you it’s ready.
- Don’t go to bed if you don’t feel tired. You will only reinforce bad habits such as lying awake.
- Get enough early morning sunshine. Exposure to light during early waking hours helps to set your body clock.
- Make sure the room is at the right temperature. For most people this is between 17 to 19°C.
- Use your bedroom only for sleeping. If you treat your bed like a second lounge room – for watching television or talking to friends on the phone, for example – your mind will associate your bedroom with activity.
- Aim to exercise every day, morning exercise is best as the morning light helps us to wake up. Evening exercise is also beneficial as long as it’s not too vigorous close to bedtime, as your body needs time to wind down.
- Try not to engage in mentally stimulating activities close to bedtime. Use the last hour or so before sleep to relax your mind. Some things that you might find relaxing include having a warm bath, reading quietly, or having a warm milky drink, since milk contains a sleep-enhancing amino acid.
- Avoid caffeinated drinks (like tea, coffee, cola or chocolate) close to bedtime.
- If you are a chronic bedtime worrier, try scheduling a half hour of ‘worry time’ well before bed. Once you retire, remind yourself that you’ve already done your worrying for the day.
https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/sleep-hygiene#bhc-content