Yet what defines a "lack of sleep?" Many consider it to be less than the recommended eight hours--however, that is not always the case. Many adolescents need more or less hours of sleep than others. To find what you need, pay attention to  how many hours of sleep you get each night, and try to determine the amount that makes you feel more tired vs. the amount that makes you more energetic for the next day.

An important thing to remember is that everybody is different. It is scientifically proven that teenagers need more sleep than adults to be healthy, and that's not even taking into account every individual's different biological makeup. Just because your sister can function well on eight hours of sleep doesn't necessarily mean you do!

Because many students' schedules are so demanding, and most teenagers typically don't pay attention to their amount of sleep, it is easy to forget the importance of both sleep quantity and quality. However, studies reveal that even one bad night's rest can affect a student up to several weeks after the incident. It is possible to recover partially from this lost sleep, but long-term effects may be trickier to fight!

Perhaps the most obvious effect of a sleep deficiency is a lack of energy throughout the school day. To many, this results in a teen just feeling "tired," and don't realize much of the consequences of a lack of sleep. This is a normal assumption, but not the right one! In reality, there are many negative effects deriving from sleep loss, and the way they can harm academic performance are very prominent.

It is important to keep in mind that a "lack of sleep" does not only rely on your sleep quantity--it also, like many things, rely on sleep quality. Let's say you go to bed at nine o'clock, and you wake up at seven. In theory, you would be getting ten hours of sleep. That's pretty great, right? But imagine you have a bad dream, and you wake up. You toss and turn for what feels like forever, and before you know it, it's four in the morning. How much sleep did you get then? Compare it with your friend, who got a solid nine hours of sleep. They probably woke up little, and if they did, they didn't have a problem with going back to sleep. Who do you think got more sleep--you or your friend?

Teenagers especially, more than other age groups, greatly rely on sleep for their functioning. Even if a teen lost only one hour of sleep, their memory recall and attentiveness can suffer the next day. The frontal lobes of the brain, which plays a large role in the operation of memory and attention, are found to be extremely sensitive to sleep debt, or the amount of sleep lost in a night. By now, you can likely already see how this leads to impaired academic performance! If you attempt to learn your school material when lacking sleep, you may struggle to grasp concepts because your attention and learning quality have decreased. Additionally, because you did, hypothetically, lose a couple hours of sleep, you may not clearly remember the little amount of material you were able to learn. Though this can be a temporary issue, when prolonging a habit of staying up late and waking up early, your academic performance can suffer in the classroom (this is why you often hear your teacher telling you to "get a good night's sleep" before a test!). Sleep is one of the primary solutions to boost cognitive functioning.

1) Practice healthy "sleep rituals"

Getting quality sleep is essential. But how do you do it? Below are the tips most scientifically helpful in getting a good night's rest.

a) Utilize white noise or ensure minimal sound when falling asleep

b) Dim or darken your bedroom before falling asleep

c) Cool the temperature of your room or house (around 65-68 degrees Fahrenheit)

d) Avoid being on electronic devices at least one hour before bedtime

e) Exercise only during the day--at least 2 hours before bedtime

f) Avoid naps during the day

g) Reserve your bedroom only for sleep/relaxing--do homework or mentally/physically stimulating things elsewhere

h) Perform deep breathing techniques before bedtime

i) Have dinner or other meals at least three hours before bedtime

j) Avoid caffeine after lunchtime

Of course, on an average day, it can be nearly impossible to do all of these things to prepare for getting quality sleep. But getting in a habit of doing at least three things from the list above has the capability of improving both your overall habits and health long-term.

2) Make a sleep schedule

A lot of teenagers already list out their busy activities on their calendar. To remind yourself to get enough rest, do the same for sleeping. You're probably not going to list "9 hours" on every day of the calendar--but make a consistent schedule about your own personal sleep goals, such as:

• Mondays and Wednesdays- sleep from 9:00 to 6:00

• Tuesdays and Thursdays- sleep from 8:30 to 5:30

• Weekends- stay up late, but sleep in!

You can adjust, or "customize," any schedule to your own personal life. For example, if you know you have a basketball game on Tuesday, remind yourself to get as much sleep as you can Monday night.

3) Be consistent

Some high schoolers need to wake up earlier than usual for early morning classes or go to sleep later due to sports' practice. Whatever the case is, it is important to incorporate consistency into your sleeping schedule as much as you can. Ideally, you'd need to go to bed and wake up at the exact same time each day. This is due to circadian rhythms. 

Think of your circadian rhythm as your biological clock. It operates on a 24-hour cycle, meaning it keeps track of your natural sleep-and-wake times on a daily basis. Circadian rhythms are responsible for a plethora of things (hormones, stress, digestive systems, body temperature, etc.). Because teenagers are still growing into adults, it is ever more important to pay attention to your circadian rhythms. Because it's a cycle, though, it thrives on consistency.

Of course, going to bed and waking up at the exact same time isn't always a realistic goal for teenagers because of their extracurricular activities, hobbies, or heavy academic load. Yet keeping in mind a general schedule for yourself can reduce stress and help with time management throughout the school day, which, in effect, can help you with going to bed on time.

1) Set timers

You might be surprised at how much homework you can get done in fifteen minutes. Some students work great under pressure, and some don't--regardless, think of all of those long tests you've taken. How many of them did you finish within a small time span? Sometimes, having a countdown is a good stressor because it gives people an internal urgency to get something done. Try working for twenty minutes, take a short break, and repeat.

2) Use what you love as motivation

"Don't wait until the last minute, and let your hobbies motivate you to get your work done."

- Jordan, 12th Grade Senior

Think about your hobbies. What do you love to do? Use it as a reward for getting your work done--for example, if you love to draw, tell yourself that you'll only get to do it for as much time as you did your work. Thirty minutes of homework, thirty minutes of artistic downtime. You may feel more excited for getting your work done if you have something to look forward to!

3) Put your phone in time-out

"One thing that helps me is putting my phone either across my room or in a different room when studying to make sure I am focused."

- Bailey, 11th Grade Junior

Do you chronically check your phone every three minutes out of habit? Many students do, whether it helps them procrastinate from doing schoolwork or it gives them a small dopamine rush to check out a social media post. A junior recommended to others to put their phones in another room while doing schoolwork--it's harder to repeatedly check your phone when you actually have to get up, isn't it?

4) Use the checklist method

"I benefit from making lists and marking off tasks each time I finish them. It's satisfying to me."

- Ella, 9th Grade Freshman

When students have large goals to complete, the project can seem very daunting. However, that's only because you may be looking at it from where you are at that moment--if you have a semester-long presentation, don't think about yourself getting up and actually presenting it. Instead, set smaller goals, such as gathering materials or setting up Google Slides. That's still progress! If you're a note-taker, check that small thing off of your list--most people work well on a reward system, and crossing a goal out can bring great satisfaction.

5) Always, always, ALWAYS have a healthy mindset

You may have seen a million posters around your school telling you to have a "growth mindset," or a way of thinking that helps you avoid pessimism or burnout while doing your schoolwork. As cheesy as you may think it is, phrases like this still ring true.  Are you struggling to understand a complex math equation? Your brain is only growing stronger when thinking it through. Are you dreading reading twenty pages of To Kill a Mockingbird for an exam? Well, you're getting smarter while doing it. Many things that feel like chores are actually things that help you out.

6) The "Future Self" Mentality

Don't think of your work--whether it's an assignment of a study session for a test--as something you're doing now. Think of it as one less thing to do later. You're ultimately doing a favor to your future self, and you want to make them happy, don't you?

7) Focus on what inspires you

Find something that inspires you. As odd as it seems, you can actually pull something that you find fascinating out of any subject if you try. For example, let's say you don't like math. You probably don't feel genuine excitement when solving for x, but you do when you see a rocket ship blast off into space. Well, mathematical properties and applications helped people build one of those in the first place. Do you see the mindset shift? You're still probably not going to love math, and that's ok--but to build a healthy respect for a subject and look at it in a way that excites you can be motivating when doing school-related projects. You can draw what inspires you out of nearly everything.

8) Find YOUR studying method

Sometimes, the culprit of procrastination is the ignorance of how to start working on a new assignment or studying. Studying probably isn't fun for you--but for many, the reason it isn't might be because they don't know how to do it. The truth is, there isn't a singular best studying method because  everybody works differently. However, there are famous ones that tend to work for more people than others, so they're worth giving a try if you don't know how to study. 

a) Active recall- You've probably heard of this one before.  This is found to be helpful for particularly complex and detailed topics. Active recall is the method of, essentially, "quizzing" yourself to memorize information. Students utilize this method via studying apps such as Quizziz, or by simply using notecards. A form of this, called "blurting," involves you reading material, closing your notebook, and immediately writing everything you remember on a separate piece of paper. Compare what you wrote down to what you read before. You can bridge knowledge gaps this way. You doing this yourself is active, and you're recalling information to yourself again and again.

b) Interleaving- Interleaving is the idea of studying multiple topics at a time. You can do this by switching subjects entirely of breaking up longer ones. Avoid studying one specific thing for hours. Instead, study one thing for ten minutes, then something else, and come back to that one thing and see how much you remember. You can do this with nearly anything, not just subjects; try switching up the order of different questions, properties, or formulas. Repeat.

c) Feynman Technique-  The Feynman technique is a student pretending to teach it to another. Try it first with the help for your paper or notebook. Then, the more and more comfortable you get with the topic, see how long you can explain the topic without looking at anything for help. Pretending to "teach" a subject to another helps to let you know the details you understand and the ones you don't. When you're explaining, where do you hesitate? At what part do you fail to remember something? Focus on studying that specific thing.

The good thing is, there's no wrong way of studying; you simply try different techniques until you find the one you're most comfortable with. If a certain method doesn't work for you, so what? You're studying either way, so move on and try something different.

9) Organization is key

"I'll write down tasks in a color coded calendar so I can be reminded about them, mark the task off as I go, and stay organized."

- Pearson, 11th Grade Junior

Picture the messiest room you have ever seen (is it yours?). Now imagine that you're stressed out about something. You take a sip of water and realize there's nowhere to put your cup. You feel like you've reached your limit in frustration, and your environment seems to echo your spiraling thoughts.

Now imagine a clean room--not perfect, but much tidier than before. How does your brain feel? Well, studies have shown that clean rooms or work spaces subconsciously reduce stress on a daily basis. Organization is not only helpful for this; it also helps students find resources or materials much easier. You can apply organization tactics anywhere, whether it's simply your stationary or your Google Doc headers. Becoming more organized helps in the long run, especially through projects or assignments. You don't have to be a "neat freak" to do it, either; anybody can improve their current organizational status simply by fixing small things as they move through their to-dos.