Northeast Community College (NECC) has always held many events and challenges to do along with going to class, doing homework, eating and of course, sleeping. However, this challenge seems to be focused on the sleep category for college students.

On March 13, the Sleep Well Challenge began by Student Health and Counseling in Union 73 on the college campus, which is great timing since this challenge became available shortly after NECC’s winter break ended.

More than 50 people have signed up and have gotten their free sleep kits. The free sleep kits include items like sleep masks, a small bottle of essential oils, ear plugs and other relaxation items to help ease people to sleep.

The Sleep Well Challenge is a 10 day challenge for college students to take part of by tracking daily sleep habits. This includes getting enough sleep, exercising – which can include relaxation or meditation – and staying off electronics an hour before going to bed. The purpose of this challenge is to help students be aware of their sleeping habits, along with challenging them to get better with those habits. This includes finding factors which negatively impact sleep schedules, along with factors that positively help them.

Certain routines that negatively impact sleep can include: drinking too much caffeine, especially later in the day. Then the biggest factor includes electronics, laptops, phones and T.V. They tend to keep people up for extra hours mostly by accident. But, there are some hidden ways to help improve sleep schedules as well.

Helping improve sleep schedules is important to health and life habits as well. Shutting off electronics an hour or two before bed is a great way to stay on track with going to sleep at a certain time. Even drinking water and getting exercise with fresh air can help. Being able to wind down with some kind of relaxation, like meditation or music, also helps people to relax and not overthink things, which can lead to falling asleep easily.

“Our end goal for the sleep challenge is to really just create awareness and get some education out there on campus about how important sleep is,” Gina Krysl, Director of Student Care and Outreach/Counselor said in an exclusive interview.

“We know students who have good sleep habits get better GPAs, they do better in class, they do better as an athlete, just do better all around. We want to make sure people just are more aware of that, how it can better affect your physical and mental health,” Krysl concluded.

This challenge will end on March 31, but free sleep kits are still available at the Northeast student health and counseling offices until the challenge ends.

Hawk TV has also covered the challenge as well, check it out in the linked video!