Teens and Sleep Essay

Teens and Sleep Essay Most high school students have a substantial amount of things to balance in their daily lives. This would range from school and homework to friends, family and many other things depending on the type of person. Every day, in the average academic year, teens feel pressured to adapt to the harsh schedule that schools have set for them. It is truly tiring for teens to get up when the sun has not even risen, and then proceed to go to school, expected to retain bucket loads of information when students cannot even manage to write their name on a sheet of paper. This is the problem with academic facilities today, as their schedules cannot seem to meet eye to eye with the average adolescent sleep pattern. Most teens like myself can never seem to get out of bed, colorful like a rainbow, ready to take on anything that comes our way. Instead, we feel grouchy, tired, and irritable since we know we did not get enough sleep, as so the night before. Some days, we may not be so lucky to wake up early, thus we end up being late, unable to make it pass that morning bell. Schools need to adjust their schedules if teens can hope to get the sleep they desperately need. As we mature our sleep patterns become different, which requires more sleep. There is a misunderstanding that teens are like the rest of us, sleep wise; therefore they don’t require extra sleep. However, as teens progress through puberty, bedtimes and waking times get later due to the hormonal changes that come along with puberty. In "The Other Big Deficit: Many Teens Fall Short On Sleep" the author states, "...The very brain chemical that makes one feel sleepy- a hormone called melatonin- is released later and later in the evening as teens get older" (Trudeau). This quote means that teens usually stay up longer than children since melatonin is released later in the evening, making them stay up longer, even if melatonin does react to darkness. This would suggest that, adolescents would have more of a challenge going to bed since it is the nature of human sleep timing, and no matter how hard you try you can't win against nature. Also according to most studies, teens need on average require nine and a half hours of sleep to function at their best, however surveys show that teens are getting even less than that making them sleep deprived. There are several other factors that disturb our sleep timing. This would include, electronic devices, computer, gaming devices, and so on. In conclusion, our internal body clock changes when we become teenagers, which requires even more sleep in order to stay on task. Due to the harsh work hours of schools, teens develop irregular sleep patterns that can end up accumulating a heavy sleep debt, which can be difficult for teens to handle. Since adolescents become sleep deprived by school, they consume stimulants such as coffee or soda in order to compensate for the sleepless hours they've had throughout the school week. In "The Science of Sleepy Teenagers" the author states, "Collectively, a day of caffeine and nicotine consumption, the biological tendency for delayed sleep, and the increased alertness promoted by computer or cell phone use generates what Carskadon calls a perfect storm for delayed sleep in teenagers" (Foster). This quote shows that consuming stimulants along with other contributing factors will, in the end, prompt an irregular sleep pattern. Since adolescents do end up adding time to their sleep debt, another way to compensate for sleep loss is that teenagers will try sleeping in on the weekend, in order to regain those sleep less hours. Most teens believe this strategy will help them balance out their sleep, however, in "The Other Big Deflict" the author states "Even if you catch up by sleeping in late on your weekend mornings," she says,” by doing so, it makes it harder for you to fall asleep by 10 or 10:30 on Sunday night. And you start all over again, sleep restricted" (Trudeau). This proves to show that sleeping endlessly on the weekends will not help you re energize your body. Instead, it will only prompt an even more unorthodox sleep schedule that can affect the performance in your academic studies. In the end, the insanely early sleep schedules can create the most irregular sleep patterns. To start off, a students academic performance can be traced back to the amount of sleep they get. Almost everyone has been there, you pulled an all nighter on a school night because you couldn't fall asleep and now you can't focus because every waking moment you feel like dozing off. Minutes feel like hours and you can't stand being in this jail you call school. The bell finally rings and you scurry home, dragging yourself to bed and taking a long nap. You wake up only to realize you have an exam the next day, but you left your notes in your locker. Now you are sitting, thinking to yourself, "If only I went to sleep." This scenario is slightly exaggerated, but the point is that when you are sleep deprived you are unprepared for school and you are unprepared to learn. If school start times were adjusted, the overall academic performance of students would improve since they wouldn't be late, they would have more sleep, and they would be ready to learn. In "The Science of Sleepy Teenagers" the author states, "Sleep disruption increases the level of the stress hormone cortical. Impulsive behavior, lack of empathy, sense of humor, and mood are similarly affected" (Foster). This proves to show that a lack of sleep can affect your overall behavior making you grumpy and moody. This means that your outlook on daily subjects such as school might change as well, affecting your capability to get assignments done along with the way you view them as well. In the final analysis, sleep deprivation can affect how you perform in an academic environment. I strongly believe that if we took the time to adjust school schedules to correctly accommodate the average teenagers sleep needs; everything will change for the better. Many teens feel as if school starts to early and that changing it to start later will deeply help them. In "The Science of Sleepy Teenagers" one-study states, "An analysis of the impact by Kyla Wahlstrom at the University of Minnesota found that academic performance was enhanced, as was attendance. Sleeping in class declined, as did self-reported depression" (Foster). This proves to show that different aspects of the educational environment were drastically improved with very little changes to the schedule. I believe one issue most people have towards changing the school schedule is that many things would need to be adjusted. This would include sports, school bus times, and so on. However, I believe it is a small price to pay since the bodies of adolescents compared to others are different in terms of sleep. In addition, is more difficult for teenagers to fall asleep in the evening that it is for kids, since it is easy for them to go to bed and not to mention the content teens learn in high school is more advanced and requires more thinking. In conclusion, making school start later will help teens get more sleep and have enough energy to take on the average school day.