Not Enough Time; Not Enough Sleep

I think every high school student will tell you that high school is stressful at one point or the other. There is always something going on to be doing and there are always friends to hang out with. I’ll admit it, I would rather hang out with friends then do homework or study for tests…who wouldn’t?! But there is a time when high school gets extremely stressful. That is the time when your grades really start to matter, and the time when you feel like you have to be involved in every activity out there. But what happens when you become so overwhelmed that you start falling asleep in class or aren’t alert enough to meet your teachers’ needs?

The National Sleep Foundation says that teenagers, ages 10-17 need 8.5-9.5 hours a night. I wish that were possible! Teachers always tell us that we need to get more sleep and need to be able to focus and stay awake in their class, but do they realize it isn’t always our fault? They give us mixed signals. They tell us to be involved in high school because that is what allows all of us to have a great high school experience. So what do we, as students do? We heed their advice and do what they tell us, we get involved! However, then teachers go and give us a bunch of homework that causes us to be up late that night trying to finish it. When each teacher gives us about a half an hour to an hour or more homework every night, it really starts to add up. This then leads us to the exhaustion we feel every day; it also leads us to not having any motivation when it comes to school. All we want to do is stay under our covers and sleep.

As for me, I am not a procrastinator. I do my homework as soon as I can, so I can have the rest of my night to enjoy. But when I have practice for one thing from 3pm-6pm, then a different practice from 6-9pm I can’t even start my homework until I get home. On those nights I am too busy trying to handle everything that I only end up getting 6 hours of sleep! This is not healthy for any one, and makes waking up and going to school every day a lot harder.

In order for high schoolers to have a successful high school experience we need teachers to understand that we have more to do than just homework and studying. Yes, class work is important and it prepares us for the future, but sometimes teachers just need to understand that we have other commitments that are just as important as our school work. High school can be a stressful time, but it shouldn’t always be.

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Information from http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/how-sleep-works/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need

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