Month: February 2025

My podgroup is choosing to explore the role of sleep on the overall health and well-being of individuals. This topic pertains to all of the broader themes of active health, including physical literacy, healthy and active living, social and community health, and mental well-being as outlined below:

Physical Literacy

Getting good quality sleep has been linked to enhancing one’s cognitive functioning and consequently overall motor memory. Children’s Hospital Colorado (2025), along with other reputable sources, continue to highlight how increased sleep corresponds with better reaction time, fast-decision making, and coordination and helps with greater overall muscle memory; skills that are integral in the development of one’s physical literacy. Having sufficient sleep allows for optimal skill development to occur and therefore makes it easier for one to participate, adapt, and learn new physical activities.

Healthy and Active Living

Sleep and physical activity are also closely linked. By giving the body and mind a chance to reset and recharge, it helps support the energy levels and motivation needed for one to engage with and successfully participate in physical activity and sports. Similarly, the more physically active someone is, the better quality sleep they are likely to have (Anawwar et al., 2023). As an athlete myself, I know this to be true as my best sleep comes after intense training sessions or games, and I struggle to sleep on days where I find myself being more sedentary. Sleep also works to help minimize one’s risk of injury by allowing the body to properly heal and recover after exercise, reducing another key component that has the potential to interfere with and hinder one’s ability to live a healthy and active lifestyle. 

Social and Community Health

Sleep also has an impact on our social relationships and interactions within our community. The more well-rested someone is, the more likely they are to engage with and participate in community activities as well as have the capacity to build and maintain strong personal relationships. Those who lack sleep are often more irritable and lack the capacity and willingness to engage in social settings, which can not only interfere with their ability to form strong social bonds with others, but also maintain existing relationships with peers as well. Therefore, this makes it difficult to build a strong sense of community with people failing to get involved in the first place and the quality of social and community involvement tends to suffer.

Mental Well-Being

The relationship between sleep and mental well-being has been well researched. Studies show that sleep enhances one’s ability to learn, think, regulate emotions, and handle daily stresses. On the other hand, a lack of sleep has been linked to one’s susceptibility of developing various mental health disorders such as anxiety and depression according to numerous studies from Harvard Medical School (2024). The relationship between sleep and mental health is seen as a perpetual cycle. Less sleep contributes to increased stress levels, and increased stress levels causes less sleep leading to an overall decline in cognitive functioning.

Check out This Video on what Would Happen if We Didn’t Sleep! – It’s SCARY!

Connection to Health Competency Seminar

Sleep can have a serious impact on ones overall mental and phyical health directly afffecting ones capacity to live a healthy and active lifestyle. Despite expert opinions, and evidence supporting the negative effect that a lack of sleep can have, many of us our still falling short of the recommended amount.  Especially as university students trying to balance our busy school, work, and social lives, many times we fail to prioritize sleep so that we are able to fit everything in. An article published by Harvard (2024) highlighted that 70 – 90% of college students get under 8 hours of sleep each night and over half of them are sleeping less than the recommended 7 hours a night. This was a concerning statistic and one that has certainly motivated me to see the value in presenting this topic to my peers for the health competency seminar.

Harvard Article Discussing the Importance of Sleep In Students and Some Tips on How to Improve Overall Sleep Quality

Ideas for Creating an Engaging Seminar Presentation

• Incorporating Videos – break up speaking content
• Offer Opportunities for small group discussions 
• Creating Polls/Surveys – chance for personal opinions
• Allow time for questions – peers can clarify info to enhance their understanding
• Kahoot quiz – test what they have learned and motivates peers to stay engaged

References

Alnawwar, M. A., Alraddadi, M. I., Algethmi, R. A., Salem, G. A., Salem, M. A., & Alharbi, A. A. (2023, August 16). The effect of physical activity on sleep quality and sleep disorder: A systematic review. Cureus. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10503965/ 

Sleep and teen athletes. Sleep for Student Athletes | Children’s Hospital Colorado. (2025). https://www.childrenscolorado.org/conditions-and-advice/sports-articles/sports-safety/sleep-student-athletes-performance/ 

Harvard Division of Continuued Education. (2024, December 17). Why you should make a good night’s sleep a priority. Harvard Summer School. https://summer.harvard.edu/blog/why-you-should-make-a-good-nights-sleep-a-priority/ 

Applying The Universal Design for Learning

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL)  is an approach to the current curriculum that aims to provide students with equal access and opportunities to succeed regardless of their abilities, cultural backgrounds, ages, etc. This model operates in a way that provides educators with choice and flexibility in how they deliver and structure their classes in a way that tailors to various learning styles. According to the UDL guidelines, the goal of this approach is to support learner agency, a process that welcomes active participation when making choices that serve various learning goals. 

It revolves around three central components: representation, action and expression, and engagement to accommodate the diverse needs within the learning environment. In the context of physical and health education, these guiding principles are critical in helping to facilitate an environment where all students can participate and benefit from the activities they engage in. 

“UDL aims to change the design of the environment rather than to situate the problem as a perceived deficit within the learner”

Ways UDL Can be Applied Within a Physical and Health Education Setting:

1. Multiple Means of Representation

• Delivering information in a variety of different ways using verbal, physical, and visual demonstrations to appeal to all different types of learners 
• For example: When actively teaching the correct technique for the complex skill of shooting a basketball, educators might use videos or diagrams along with a physical demonstration to outline the key points to performing the skill successfully

2. Multiple Means of Expression

• Giving students different ways that they can demonstrate their learning
• For example: When exploring various health concepts such as nutrition or stress management, allow students the opportunity to explore particular topics and present what they have learned in creative ways such as infographics, slide presentations and videos

3. Multiple Means of Engagement

• Offering activities that are motivating and goal centered in a way that fosters collaboration and teamwork and facilitates strong social connections
• For example: Instead of getting students to see how many layups they can make in a row individually, have them work in teams to foster a greater sense of motivation and build team camaraderie to increase overall engagement

Liberman-Brian Inclusion Rating Scale for Physical Education (LIRSPE)

What is it: Rating Scale that measures the efforts taken by teachers to include students with disabilites into the physical education environment 

Purpose: To evaluate whether or not the actions being taken by the teacher are providing those with disabilities equal physical education opportunities as their regular developing peers

How it Works:

• Must be used over at least 3 physical and health education classes and include 1 child with a disability
• Teachers receive the scale a day before they are evaluated to prepare
• Raters watch class and circle number betwee 1-5 pertaining to the descriptors listed:
  • 1=Poor- Student is not included in class
  • 2=Below- average Student is rarely included in class
  • 3=Average- Student is sometimes included but not all the time
  • 4=Above average- Student is mostly included in class
  • 5=Excellent- Student is fully included all of the time
• To Calculate – Total number of descriptive scores/ number of descriptors used = Inclusion Rating (How well the teacher was able to include ALL students within the class)

Check out this video on how to Incorporate UDL in Physical Education Classes Through the Lieberman-Brian Inclusion Rating Scale!

Extending Beyond the Educational Environment

The UDL framework allows for flexible learning in a way that accommodates individual learning needs and preferences but it’s principles can extend well beyond the scope of education. By providing multiple means of representation, expression, and engagement this approach can also be useful in broader health and community settings as well. Ways in which UDL is useful in these contexts include:

1. Increases Health Literary 
   • Allow us to present info in a way that can be read and understood by all regardless of language or cognitive abilities 
   • Lets people communicate and demonstrate their health knowledge in multiple different ways leading to enhanced communication with healthcare professionals
   • Deliver health messages in a way that motivates and inspires a large population (i.e. using facts as opposed to soft stories to show the importance of healthy eating)
2. Improve Accessibility
   • Design and adapt community programs so that they can be equally accessed by all regardless or physical or intellectual disablilities
3. Develop Effective Personalized Health Programs
   • Tailor programs based on individual needs, goals, limitations, strengths to help them achieve health related goals
   • Encourage people to take ownership of their own health and well-being by empowering a self-directed learning approach
4. Consider and Accept Cultural Diversity
   • Deliver programs in a way that considers the beliefs, practices, and barriers of different cultures (i.e. having materials written in different languages, including cultural practices such as medicinal treatments used by Indigenous peoples along with modern health interventions

By using the UDL framework in broader health settings and communities we can deliver more effective, inclusive, accessible, and personalized health services and programs that resonate with all people regardless of cultural differences and barriers. This ensures better outcomes for all!

References

Kuzik, N., Costa, B. G. G. da, Hwang, Y., Verswijveren, S. J. J. M., Rollo, S., Tremblay, M. S., Bélanger, S., Carson, V., Davis, M., Hornby, S., Huang, W. Y., Law, B., Salmon, J., Tomasone, J. R., Wachira, L.-J., Wijndaele, K., & Saunders, T. J. (2022, April 5). School-related sedentary behaviours and indicators of health and well-being among children and youth: A systematic review – international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity. BioMed Central. https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-022-01258-4