Are You Getting Enough Sleep at Night?

Does your sleep schedule satisfy the amount of hours an average teenager is supposed to get? A lot of teens are well known for going to bed late, sleeping past alarms, and even sleeping in school. Do you know why? Because the majority of teens that we find snoozing during the school lectures or boring movies don’t actually go to bed till after midnight.

Not only is it hard on your body, but lack of sleep can cause your brain to not function the way it should. CBSnews.com advises teens ages 14 to 17 to sleep 8 to 10 hours per night. A lot of teens are sleeping a lot, just not at night. Lots of students sleep barely any hours at night, endure 7 long, painful hours of school, and then go home and nap. After a nap they are rested and now they don't want to sleep at night when they should. We now have a cycle that occurs everyday and causes the teenager’s sleep patterns to be screwed up. Now we have teens going through school sleep deprived causing them to have motivation issues. Who wants to do anything when you're running on 4 hours of sleep? Nobody. With the amount of work students get, they need to be well rested to be able to balance the stress. This is not healthy for them or their brains, as it can lead to depression and other mental health problems. Sleep deprivation can also cause bad grades, mood swings, and make you antisocial. It's really not healthy at all to be staying up hours and hours past midnight, and for what? So you can talk to your friends for a few more hours? Talk to them at school when your brain and body are well rested.

Think about when you take naps. Usually, when you wake up you are much more tired then you were before. This is because your body wasn’t capable of committing to REM sleep. REM sleep is a stage of sleep that helps your body relax and fully recover. When you wake up feeling rested it is most likely because your body completed a full cycle of REM sleep. If you are woken up halfway through REM this is when our bodies feel miserable, therefore, if you go to bed very late your body isn't capable of completing its cycle and in result you feel mopey and exhausted.

Do you really want to be miserable every day when you have the opportunity to sleep at night and better yourself? Don't you want better grades, happier moods, less stress? I know in the moment you may not want to sleep but you will thank yourself later. It also may seem uncool to go to bed earlier than all your friends, but trust me, you’ll be thankful when you wake up every morning feeling refreshed and in a better mood.

Article by Lexi Geddis

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-u-s-teens-are-more-sleep-deprived-than-ever/

https://www.sleepassociation.org/about-sleep/stages-of-sleep/rem-sleep/