Lets be very blunt here, the majority of students do not get enough sleep. Between schoolwork, regular work, keeping up with friends or children, and all those distractions on the internet, the role of a student is a very exhausting one. This is not even factoring in all those dedicated commuters who drive or, even more fun, bus to campus. Being a student is not pleasant, and to do all of this while exhausted is even worse.

All that’s needed is a little looking around at all those who fall asleep in class, lounge across the hallway benches, or those who have found a nice quiet desk to rest their heads on in the library, is more than enough to tell you how tired the student body as a whole is.

One of the best examples of this is my own sister. I see her constantly crashing the second she gets home from exhaustion, due to her staying up till morning the night before to work on assignments. She’s asked me to be her alarm several times as she dozes off in front of me in the cafeteria or in the library, and she’s not the only one I see doing so.

Walk down a quiet hallway and you can see some students curled up with their backpack pillows resting on one of the benches against the wall, people taking a snooze in the piano rooms instead of practicing. I myself will even embarrassingly admit to falling asleep several times during my morning classes (and some afternoon ones as well).

With that in mind, what is the best solution? Just let us sleep, please. Really, it doesn’t take much to provide students with a quiet and private place to catch a nap. A separate quiet room with a few cushions or beanbag chairs is more than suitable, or if you really want to go cheap, just an empty private room is fine. When you’re tired enough, even the floor will feel like a haven.

The idea of a napping room is not an outrageous thing; many schools across the country are already applying it to their campuses. In the fall of 2014 the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor placed six vinyl cots and disposable pillowcases on the first floor of their library, available for any students to rent out for 30 minutes. The Savannah College of Arts and Design has had a couple of fancy and expensive EnergyPods available to their commuting students since 2006 and plan to add more to their abroad campuses. Since September 2013 the students of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. have had the luxury of what they call “The Napping Nook”, which contains six beanbag chairs and antimicrobial pillows available via online reservation for 40-minute intervals.

It’s common knowledge that sleep is good for you, after all that’s why parents are always telling their children to go to bed early and why we always hear the recommendation of getting our “eight hours” a night.

We also know what it looks like when someone doesn’t get enough sleep, they’re groggy, slow, and zombified. Is this really the kind of student we want? Every student wants an “A” and every teacher wants to be able to give their students that “A” but when your student is burning the midnight oil to get homework done so that they can’t even keep their heads up in class, what’s the point of even having them there at all?

With a room on campus dedicated to napping, students have the ability to remain more dedicated. After all they’re still at school and that atmosphere will help keep them on track and focused, instead of having to deal with all the other distractions and lack of supervision at home. Once they’re done resting themselves they can jump straight back to schoolwork instead of convincing themselves to spend “just five more minutes” in bed, and we all know how that turns out.

If you want students to succeed, let them sleep. No amount of coffee, sports drinks or sheer willpower will ever rejuvenate a student as much as shutting off their brains for a few minutes.