In High School, all the students are different in their own ways, but there is one common ground that unites us all. Sleep. Ask any student what they would rather be doing right now, and prepare for the answer to be something along the lines of taking a nap. ”The bags under my eyes are designer,” Lauren Parker frequently jokes. As teenagers, we have earned the stereotype of being lazy, because all we seem to do is complain about how we rather be snuggled up under our blankets in our warm cozy beds. However, it might not be lazy as much as it is exhaustion. We can blame electronics all we want, but there is the chance that our problems with sleeping go deeper than that. The problem is teenagers aren’t aware that they are sleep deprived, and they don’t know how to avoid it.

”The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem,” is a relevant saying to the sleep deprivation situation. How can you fix a problem, when you don’t even know you have one? The answer is you can’t. It seems that teenagers are not completely aware that they have been deprived of sleep. It appears that students walking around the halls like zombies, dragging their backpacks and trying to cover up the bags under their eyes has become the norm. It’s because they are so used to the lack of sleep, they don’t realize what is going on. To fix this, the students must become aware of how to know when they are sleep deprived. “Your coordination is really off and hard to focus. It’s really hard to move when sleep deprived because everything feels heavy,” Sophomore Jonnathan T. Sullivan shared about how to tell when he is lacking sleep. Based on Tom Schieve’s article “10 Signs May Be Sleep Deprived”, these are some symptoms of sleep deprivation:

• Handling stress badly
• Becoming forgetful
• Being distracted easily,
• Having increased appetite
• Struggling with vision
• Becoming more impulsive in decision-making
• Being clumsy
• Having mood swings

A way to avoid being tired and sleep deprived is to not interrupt the 5 stage sleep cycle. These interruptions make it seems like you hadn’t been sleeping at all. According to the article “Study: Interrupted Sleep May Be as Harmful as No Sleep at All”, a person should go through all five stages:

•       Stage One-where you are starting to drift off.
• Stage Two-your body temperature drops and heart rate slows.
• Stage Three- transition from light sleep to deep sleep.
• Stage Four-deep sleep occurs.
• Stage Five- rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep starts, and this is where dreaming happens. REM sleep comes in 60- to 90-minute cycles and shouldn’t be interrupted.

”I usually go to bed between 12 and 3, depending on how much homework and studying I have to do. I wake up between 6 and 6:30 depending on how many times I hit the snooze button,” writes Sophomore Ashlen Grubbs. When asked how she feels during the school day, Ashlen continues,” Sometimes groggy, but the less sleep I get the more adrenaline I have, and the more alert I seem.”

How can we refrain from feeling groggy, on edge, and like we could pass out at any given moment? Well, there’s website where you can enter in what time you need to wake up, and according to the lengths of regular sleep cycles, will tell you multiple times you can go to bed. The point of the ‘sleep calculator’ is that it will time it where you won’t wake up in the middle of the sleep cycle. The website is http://sleepyti.me/ , and I hope it helpful to anyone who decides to use it. All it takes is one good night’s rest for students to feels refreshed.

If anyone can understand the weary students, it’s their peers. We, students, have all been there. Even if some haven’t been sleep deprived, we all know the struggle with falling asleep. So who better to give advice than, students, themselves. These are some tips from students for students struggling to fall asleep.

• “Try to avoid caffeine and sugar at least an hour and a half before sleep.”–J.T. Sullivan
• “Turn your brightness on your phone. You really shouldn’t use it at all before bed, but you know.”-Hailey Bondia
• “Drink Camille Tea”- Kaylan Anderson
• “I don’t recommend taking melatonin unless it’s recommended by a doctor”-Jessika Shanks
• “Do something that makes you happy before you go to bed so you won’t be in a negative mood. That way you won’t over think things while trying to fall asleep.”- Ashlen Grubbs.
• “I drink hot tea before going to sleep.” – Kiri Guyer
• “Over breaks, if I stay up until like 4 am, I usually stay up until the time I need to go to sleep so I can wake up when I need to get up in the morning.” –Ethan Blunk
• “Develop a routine. Like try to do something before bed every night, and your body will start to realize that it’s time to go bed after you do that thing.” – Jessica Hornback
• “You should read before you go to bed.” – Elena Cecil

 

Teenagers are battling with sleep deprivation, and they just might be losing. You can’t win a war if you don’t know what you’re fighting. With that said, they need to know when they’re sleep deprived, and how they can avoid it. If LaRue County students work towards getting a better night’s rest, or even sleep at all, then they won’t only be more productive, they’ll a better version of themselves. Forget the stressful classes, the grades, and the work. In the end, it all comes down to one thing, and that’s that we want our students to be happy. It’s time to get some sleep. Sweet Dreams, Hawks.

 

Works Cited

Mercola. “Study: Interrupted Sleep May Be as Harmful as No Sleep at All.” (2014).

Schieve, Tom. “10 Signs You May Be Sleep Deprived.” (2011).