Sleep Deprivation in High School

Written by Benjamin Rouse

How does sleep affect the average life of a high school student? How can it affect work ethic, grades, and personal mental health?

The brain itself changes when restricted from proper sleep, people can’t function normally when they don’t get enough sleep at night. The start of the school day is already too early, teens tend to need more sleep than younger children, and high schools usually start an hour earlier. Students in high school would have to go to bed by at least 8 pm in the evening to get the full amount of sleep. However, most stay up to 10 pm to 1am in the morning. Teens going to sleep at eight is just unrealistic, as teenagers naturally want to stay up later and sleep longer throughout the day. Students’ lives are also busier in high school than ever before. Some students have larger workloads, jobs, or other after school activities. Oftentimes, teens don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s a choice between grades, social life and sleep.

So what is it like to go through school constantly sleep deprived? Lack of sleep can make a person feel irritable and is damaging to both long and short term memory. Students who come to school sleep deprived may under perform. School is a skill check system, with large tests making up the majority of the grade. Students cannot afford to be handicapped by sleep deprivation. Long term effects of sleep deprivation can cause permanent brain damage, it can alter the brain chemistry and affect hormonal behavior severely affecting the student.

It should be within the best interest of the school system, to allow students proper time to sleep to be able to function at full capacity. Some students may have no idea that their personal best could be improved simply by sleeping more. Letting students get more sleep each night could improve their grades and mental health in school. Studies done like the one at Michigan State University using a pool of over 1,000 students shows the alteration of brain function doing normal tasks on low amounts of sleep with students who are sleep deprived scored on average 40 percent worse. The easiest solution is to just push back the start of school. Instead of school starting at six to eight, the start of school could be pushed back to around nine to ten. This would provide students with the means to sleep the recommended amount provided by the CDC approved recommendation. (8-10 Hours) Well-rested students will likely be able to perform better at school in all academic categories, the time change would affect extracurricular, jobs and after school activities though. Some students rely on sports scholarships to go to college and pushing back school start times later could affect athletic performances. Activities like these would have to be altered to fit the new schedule. The best solution should be to just shorten the school day. If the length of school cannot meet certain standards for the well being of students, then it shouldn’t be that long to begin with.

Students feel exhausted by the end of the school day, so should school be shorter? Some teachers might argue every minute counts, but I don’t agree. A lot of class time is usually spent with students just absent-minded staring at the clock waiting for it to end. Cutting every class by 15-30 minutes and making some electives optional would allow students to be out of school hours earlier. If the start of school can’t be pushed back, then perhaps letting the students out early will help with mental fatigue.

Everyone requires sleep to function, lack of sleep permanently damages physical and mental development, this can later affect things like passing high school and college acceptances. The fact that this is such a big problem and is still going under the radar is an embarrassment, students NEED to sleep to be able to achieve greatness.