Students today are sleep-deprived.
How much sleep can a student really get with sports, clubs, Driver’s Ed., homework, jobs, and after school activities? There seems to be so much to do in one day, but hardly any time.
Believe it or not, according to studies at UCLA, teens are supposed to get at least eight and a half hours of sleep or more each night to function the best.
Our nurse, Ms. Andarakis, says students who stay up late are “just being normal teenagers, but try and get sleep.” She also says that “a lack of sleep affects anybody’s performance, whether it’s a student, nurse, pilot, whoever.”
Juniors Travis Enright and Elizabeth Moschella both say that they get about six hours of sleep a night and come to school tired almost every day.
Students who are busy after school usually have only a small amount of time to do hours worth of homework. Travis, who plays baseball, says, “The days we have away games I’m sometimes too tired to do my homework at all.” Elizabeth, a varsity softball player, says, “Because of softball I get home later, do my homework later, stay up later, and get hardly any sleep.” She also says, “I always want to finish my homework completely, but it’s hard to do that with all of the homework in AP and honors classes.”
According to USA Today, the average high school student’s alarm rings no later than 6:30 am and most school busses arrive around 7 am. For each AP class, a student could expect at least thirty minutes to an hour of homework a night, plus all of their other classes’ work.
By the time homework is finished, do you choose studying or sleep? Cramming may seem like a good option, but TIME magazine and studies at UCLA say otherwise. They claim “teens who stay up late at night cramming are more likely to have academic problems the following day – doing poorly on the test they studied for.”
The bottom line is, teens need to try to go to sleep earlier, so that they are most prepared to function the best in school. A good night’s sleep makes a well rested student who is ready to learn.
