Students don't get enough sleep

Adults constantly criticize high school students for not getting enough sleep, as if its entirely the fault of the teenager. They couple their poorly designed Powerpoints with horrifying statistics about the consequences of sleep deprivation and encourage us to get “a full eight to 10 hours”. In reality, however, it seems that hardly any high school student has ever slept a full 10 hours on a school night at any point during their four years. This is a huge problem.While there are many factors and pending assignments that lead to teenage sleep deprivation, one of the main reasons for this issue is most school’s incredibly early start time. A teenager’s biological sleep pattern shifts towards a later sleep and wake up time. Basically, it is unnatural to go to sleep before 11:00 p.m. states Child Mind Institute, a nonprofit organization that researches and helps families with mental health and learning disorders. Schools do not take this biological dilemma into account, with wake up times as early as 5 a.m. for some students. Waking up early isn’t only problematic in terms of lowering hours of sleep, studies also show that most teenagers are incapable of fully functioning before 9 a.m. This also creates a new problem when many teens revert back to a more natural schedule on the weekends, in which they go to sleep late and wake up late. This creates an irregular sleep schedule across the week, which has been linked to lower grades and overall drowsiness throughout the day. The epidemic of sleep deprivation is a phenomenon affecting 92 percent of America’s teenagers. Studies show that most teenagers suffer from borderline to severe sleep deprivation. According to a 2010 study in The Journal of Adolescent Health, 8 percent of high school students get the recommended amount of sleep to be fully alert throughout the day. In total, more than half of American teenagers live with chronic sleep deprivation (the state of regularly not getting the recommended eight to ten hours of sleep). If more than half of teenagers are sleep deprived but most still function throughout the day, then sleep deprivation must not be too drastic, right? This is completely incorrect. Child Mind Institute states that, “sleep deficit is not, in fact, a normal part of being a teenager. It’s part of an invisible epidemic that we need to start addressing”.When you look at the long-term consequences of years of sleep deprivation, the label “epidemic” becomes appropriate. There is an astounding physical risk to not getting enough sleep. Each year, there are 100,000 car accidents caused by falling asleep behind the wheel, and people under the age of 25 are responsible for over half of them. At this rate, getting behind the wheel while sleep deprived can be just as deadly as drunk driving. And while driving is definitely one of the most serious physical risks, everything from using a knife to cut a slice of bread to crossing the street becomes an enormous gamble when one is in the drowsy state that stems from too little sleep. Dr. Mary Carskadon is a professor of psychiatry at Brown University and director of sleep research at Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island.“Even acute short-sleep can lead to risky behavior and poor judgement. Sleep deprivation puts teenagers into a perpetual cloud or haze,” Carskadon said.The typical teen behavior, that may be misconceived as “teen angst”, is in fact not present in a well-rested teenager. There is a prevalent correlation between lack of sleep and aggressiveness and impulsivity. With this comes an increase in “risky” behavior. Students who get less sleep are far more likely to become addicted to stimulants. These stimulants, such as caffeine, are popular for the extra energy boost they provide for tired students. Many students also remedy sleep-related emotional distress with nicotine and alcohol. And as if that isn’t enough, students on less sleep are even more likely to make reckless decisions as a result of lack of impulse control, judgment, and awareness. This can mean anything from unprotected sex to reckless driving. Permanent, more complex, mental disorders can also result from a lack of sleep. For example, people with insomnia are 10 times more likely to diagnosed with clinical depression and 17 times more likely to be diagnosed with clinical anxiety. Depression, the state of feeling sad or helpless for long periods of time, is experienced by 20 percent of teens before they reach adulthood. Sleep deprivation only increases the chance and strength of clinical depression. Some changes can be made by students to get more sleep, such as staying off electronics before bed and not procrastinating during the day. However, a large part of the sleep deprivation epidemic is because of unreasonable schedules made by school boards and administration.