Colman Noctor: Sport and study are not opposites but partners in academic success

Anyone who has raised a teenage boy knows the restless energy that simmers just beneath the surface. School, however, asks for stillness.

IT’S Tuesday evening, and I find myself standing in the kitchen at 9.15 pm, waiting for the kettle to boil, while staring at the Pot Noodle I am making for my 15-year-old son. He has just come home, buzzing with excitement because his football coach told him he did well during his training session. Within minutes, he was in the shower, and now he’s at the kitchen table, books spread out, insisting he has five paragraphs of Irish to write before bed, or else he will be ‘deducted merit points’. He started his homework earlier, but still had more to do.

I sigh, not because I don’t admire his conscientious work ethic, but because I know what’s coming: the clock will creep towards midnight, the alarm will still be set for 7.30am, and he will spend another day of school yawning through his classes. I wonder how long he can keep all the balls in the air, literally and figuratively.

My son’s story is far from unusual. Across the country, teenagers are juggling heavy homework loads with demanding training schedules, trying to find enough hours in the week for both. Parents, meanwhile, are left worrying: Should sport take a back seat to academics during a State exam year? Or is sport the very thing that keeps students healthy, grounded, and able to cope with school in the first place?

Anyone who has raised a teenage boy knows the restless energy that simmers just beneath the surface. School, however, asks for stillness. From 8.50am until 4pm, they are expected to sit at desks, listen, absorb, and produce work. By the time they get home, they’ve already spent six or seven hours in a sedentary mode.

A large-scale study in the Journal of Sports Medicine & Health Science this year found that adolescent males often need more physical outlets to regulate their mood and attention. Expecting them to sit quietly all day and then sit again for homework is a significant challenge. Continuous sitting can result in fidgeting, irritability, lapses in focus, or just zoning out.

As a result of having to be sedentary for so long, sport plays more of a role than just ‘fun after school’. It’s the pressure valve that allows pent-up energy to escape, making room for calm and concentration later. Without it, many boys struggle not only physically, but emotionally, too.

Despite my awareness of the value of sport, I sometimes catch myself thinking, ‘If he cuts back on football, he’d have more time for schoolwork’. It’s a common parental reflex. Yet research repeatedly shows that exercise and academic achievement are not enemies — they are allies.

I know physical activity boosts oxygen flow to the brain, improves memory, and sharpens concentration. It lowers stress hormones and triggers feel-good chemicals like serotonin, which stabilise mood. In practical terms, that hour spent chasing a ball across the pitch often helps homework go faster, not slower.

Then there are the social benefits. For teens, sport can be a lifeline for belonging, and a team environment can be an antidote when school feels overwhelming. Pulling a young person out of that environment may free up hours in a day, but it risks cutting away one of their strongest supports and further reducing their social contact, which already is nowhere near enough.

Heavy school workload

The reality of heavy homework cannot be ignored. I have seen the significant change in my son’s workload from second to third year and watched him push through late-night essays, knowing the alarm clock will punish him in the morning. Exams, projects, and relentless classroom-based assessments leave little wiggle room for anything else.

What helps, I’ve learned, is treating homework like training: something that benefits from strategy, routine, and discipline.

My son is learning to “chunk” his tasks by doing smaller portions in spare pockets of time, like before training or during a free class.

He’s also beginning to recognise the importance of prioritising, tackling the urgent pieces first instead of spiralling into panic when multiple homework tasks are due in on the same day.

It’s not always smooth. Sometimes life gets in the way, distractions pile up, and deadlines loom large. However, through gentle coaching, I am trying to help him set boundaries around screens, nudging him to rest rather than cramming past midnight, which hopefully means he is learning how to manage the workload.

However, for young people with dyspraxia or ADHD, these habits do not come easily, often leading to frustration and an adverse effect on their mood.

While I do not in any way want to minimise this struggle for girls, boys, in particular, seem to suffer when physical outlets are restricted. Some studies show that boys appear to gain stronger mental-health protection from higher volumes of organised sports than girls, but admittedly, the evidence is mixed.

However, research on teenage boys and girls shows that PE classes, gym, or training sessions don’t just work muscles; they reset emotional equilibrium. It’s why some of the grumpiest teenage arguments can be diffused not with lectures, but with a kickabout in the garden or in our case a few shots with the basketball hoop at the front of our home. [exa.mn/activity]

Guiding principles

When parents see irritability or slipping grades, it’s tempting to cut back on sports to “fix” the problem. But often, the opposite is needed: more opportunities to move, not less.

So, what can parents do? There are no perfect answers, but some guiding principles that might help:

• We need to see sport as fuel, not a distraction: Rather than seeing training sessions as something that steals from homework time, view them as something that fuels homework;
• Plan the week together: Sitting down on Sunday to map out homework deadlines, training sessions, and downtime gives teens a more straightforward path through the chaos;
• Advocate when needed: If the load truly becomes unmanageable, don’t be afraid to talk with teachers. Schools are often more flexible than parents expect when they understand the whole picture;
• Protect sleep: The lure of “just one more page” at 11.30pm is strong, but the trade-off is significant. Sleep is the foundation that schoolwork and sport rely on, so we need to learn to prioritise it;
• Spot the warning signs: If your teen is constantly exhausted, losing joy in their sport, or showing signs of stress, it may be time to pull back temporarily, not as punishment, but for recovery. This is especially true for a teen who plays multiple sports at one time.

The bigger picture

I can see how sport is teaching my son lessons far beyond the pitch. These include resilience after a loss, teamwork when the odds are stacked against him, and the discipline to show up rain or shine. Skills that study and exams alone cannot provide.

If we consider life after school, employers increasingly look for evidence of these human qualities. A balanced teen who has learned to juggle competing demands will carry those skills into adulthood and reap the benefits in the long term.

I have also learned to accept that my son won’t get it right every week. Some nights will still end too late, some homework will still feel rushed, some training will still clash with deadlines, and he will still lose ‘merit points’ for turning up in class without having his homework completed to the expected standard. But I have told him that his goal isn’t perfection, but sustainability. In other words, providing enough surmountable stress so that he grows without being overwhelmed or getting burnt out.

The small victories matter. A night when he finishes his work before bed without collapsing into exhaustion is considered a win. A Saturday when he plays his best on the pitch and still manages to revise for Monday’s test, or a Tuesday evening when he manages to complete all his homework before training. Those moments remind me that balance isn’t just possible, it’s worth fighting for.

So the next time your teenager insists on heading to training before opening a textbook, pause before saying no. They may be running towards the very thing that makes their schoolwork possible and provides them with the clarity, resilience, and mental reset only exercise can bring.

• Dr Colman Noctor is a child psychotherapist