Why High Schools Should Have Sleeping Pods

It is not a surprise that most teen students would benefit from an extra hour of sleep rather than having finished a critical assignment. A study conducted by ‘study.com’ showed that the average high school student got about 6.5 hours of sleep rather than the needed 8-10 hours of sleep. This means that many students can't concentrate in class, struggle to finish their homework, fall behind in class and most students can't really change their schedule if a change in time happened. This doesn't make for a pleasant learning environment because students only think about when the course is over so they can rest. This means that it would be extremely beneficial for high schools to have sleeping pods.

The first reason why schools should adopt sleeping pods is that a vast majority of students usually take the bus to go to school, and because of this, high school students need to wake up early to catch the bus because their school starts earlier than elementary school. This wouldn’t be that bad if students did not get a high academic workload as they need to stay awake longer to finish the work that they are given. This can lead to sleep deprivation and being deprived of sleep really starts showing its side effects in the long run. If students do not get enough sleep, their body gets tired, and they can't pay attention in class. Kimberly Fenn, a professor at Michigan State University that made the world's most important study of sleep, states that, "our research showed that sleep deprivation doubles the odds of making placekeeping errors and triples the number of lapses in attention, which is startling." In other words, when a person is tired, they're less aware of what is going on in their surrounding area, and for a high school student missing a mistake on anything, especially if it is an exam, can be catastrophic. Also, it could be the difference between passing or failing a course. In addition to this, an article made by Medical News Today states, that “some groups of people may consider sleep as wasted time and purposely deprive themselves of sleep to pursue other things such as entertainment, educational goals, or money-making pursuits.” Also, even if students tried to sleep at their home and couldn't, maybe if schools contained sleeping pods, students could rest at school.

Reason two is that being sleep deprived is not just harmful to academic success, it can also cause problems in people's own schedules, which could cause students to not be well organized so they may lose something important like an essay or a project. The side effects of being sleep deprived don't end there: memory issues, trouble thinking and concentrating, mood changes, and weakened immune systems are just a few. All of the side effects are bad for the average high school student because if a student is sick, they miss class, and if they can't concentrate, which is also bad, it makes them more vulnerable to making a severe mistake that can cost them a grade or even a course. An article produced by Sleep Foundation also supports this by stating, "sleep is vital to your well-being, as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat." This means that if students put sleep aside because they don't consider it necessary, this action can cause severe problems for them, but if the student can try to make up some time, even if they can’t make it up at home, they could do it at school if the school contained sleeping pods.

If students really wanted to change the times that school started, it would be harder than it would seem. Even making the schools start at 9 a.m. and end at 3 p.m. rather than the usual starting 8 a.m. and ending at 2 p.m. is hard. The reason for this is that a small group of students go to work or have to do their community service hours. In addition to that, students need the time so they can finish their homework. Also, a majority of students have extracurriculars after school - activities like sports teams or a club to go to. Plus, most parents may not be available to pick up their kids at that time. Lastly, it could be hard to try and convince the Minister of Education to extend the times and explain to the parent what is going on. Implementing sleeping pods is not much of a challenge except if the schools and the Minister of Education are willing to do so. So far only universities contain sleeping pods, but there is a high school in New Mexico that is trying to integrate sleeping pods to their school and the research that they are doing so far is suggesting that students that rested in the sleeping pod were calmer, less anxious teens who started to do better in school. A group of students in the research stated “they all felt more rested, happier and more in control of their emotions” after resting in a sleeping pod. This is not the only school that tried this. The British Columbia Institute of Technology is also trying the system and is so far pleased about the change just the same.