Midnight Struggles: Highschoolers and Sleep Schedules
Photo Credits: Amerisleep.com
By: Ella Embry
In high school, it’s hard to find a topic that every individual can relate to. Whether you are an athlete spending hours perfecting your craft or an AP student drowning in homework each night, there is one thing that each person can mutually agree on. Sleep. We all take it for granted when we are kids. Never wanting to take naps or trying your hardest to stay up past bedtime. The irony hits you hard when you enter high school and develop a fulltime job of being a student. Now it feels like there is never a chance to relax. Any ounce of freetime is spent practicing, studying or simply being a human. As soon as you get home from school, the only thing you want to do is sleep. I never fully understood why my parents were so tired coming home from work and why they didn’t want to stay up until midnight watching movies. Now that I am a Senior in high school taking multiple college classes and spending hours each day practicing, I understand more than ever. Throughout this article, I have examined and surveyed several students from Jenks High School to gain access on what their “normal” sleep schedule consists of. My end goal is to determine how much workload is on our plates and if it’s actually beneficial for us in the long run.
There are three categories that I conducted my results through. Number of sleep per night, number of AP or college level classes and how many hours of practice each athlete endures. As a baseline for you to examine, I first surveyed how many hours of sleep each student was getting on average. The results consist of the following…
Graph representing results from poll.
Twenty-seven students responded to a question posted on the Jenks Trojan Torch Instagram (@jenkstrojantorch). The answers ranged from nine hours to as little as four hours of sleep. The average number of responses were recorded amongst 6-7 hours each night. However, two individuals responded with four hours of sleep and one individual responded to nine hours of sleep. “Sleep research suggests that a teenager needs between eight and 10 hours of sleep every night,” (BetterHealthChannel). The minimum number of sleep is only reached by a fraction of our school’s population. It’s a matter of not having enough time throughout the day to accomplish what is expected of students.
As a student, you go to school for 7+ hours each day. The goal is to work hard, get your work done on time and repeat the next day. It’s a constant cycle of hard work. These seven hours, five days a week do not include the extra hours students are tasked to work on outside of school. To preface, AP and college level classes' workload is expected to be heavier than normal classes at Jenks. However, it doesn’t mean that they should be giving up their sleep in exchange for more rigorous classwork. I was able to correlate the number of AP classes each student recorded to their number of sleep they answered with. For example, the student that only receives four hours of sleep each night is also the student taking six AP classes. I am sure you can determine why that is. Another student logged that they receive six hours of sleep while only taking three AP classes. Taking hard classes and trying to better yourself academically should not result in a shortage of what humans need the most. Unfortunately, academics and grades are not the only thing that keep students up at night.
Teenagers sleep schedule graph, Photo Creds: The Pearl Post
Jenks High School is recognized for many academic accomplishments and achievements. However, they are widely known for their athletics and overall outstanding players. This does not come lightly. When you choose to play a sport for Jenks, you choose that to be your life. You give everything you have to your sport and show up for practice each and everyday. These daily rituals come before and after school and they do not come easy. Rest is the only way to recover. Unfortunately, rest and sleep is limited for athletes. In another addition to my survey, I had the same twenty-seven students log if they were an athlete and if so, how many hours a day they practice.
The poll ranged from 2-4 hours daily. On average, most athletes at Jenks practice for two hours before or after school. While they could be using this time for other critical needs such as sleep and studying, they are using it to perfect their craft and try to be one of the best. The difficult part of being a student-athlete revolves around the first word. Student. It’s hard to manage school and athletics on the regular so now try adding in sleep to the equation. It simply doesn’t work because there are not enough hours in the day. As I look back and forth between the responses of the survey, it doesn’t shock me that the students receiving less sleep are the athletes that are also involved in AP and college level curriculum. One individual’s response showed that they receive five hours of sleep each night and take four AP classes. After a regular school day, they go to practice. After practice, the day’s not done yet. They have to continue their schoolwork at home and balance eating dinner and preparing to repeat it all the next day before they can even think about sleeping.
Child Mind Institute Logo, Photo Creds: childmindinstitute.com
The Child Mind Institute is an organization focused solely on sleep and deprivation in children to teenagers. Writer, Juliann Garey alongside clinical experts, Allison Baker, Mary A. Carskadon and Ryan C. Meldrum, came to a conclusion on the chronic lack of sleep most highschoolers are facing in today's society.
"Some kids try to make up by sleeping a lot on the weekends. That can work for a little while but is not a long-term solution. One study found that teens who don’t sleep enough feel anxious, stressed and depressed. These symptoms make it harder to sleep and it becomes a bad cycle. In fact, since many mental health disorders first show up in the teen years, doctors worry that sleep deprivation may bring those conditions on or make them worse," said Garey.
Sleep deprivation can not only create bad habits and cycles but also create long lasting effects on mental and physical health. While kids think they can recover and eventually get back the sleep they’ve lost, it’s already too late. The damage has already been done to the body. It’s crucial to begin healthier habits from a younger age.
Overall, students and athletes deserve more recognition for what their day-to-day schedules look like. They give up valuable things such as their own sleep to work hard on their sport and academics. Society puts too much pressure and stress on highschoolers when they are simply trying their best to get through the day. Even though sleep is an asset that is crucial for every individual, it’s even more important for growing teenagers. Education and athletics are beneficial for children in the long run as it gives them a sense of purpose and an idea of what hard work accomplishes for your future. It doesn’t go to say that any of it is easy though. The balance of school, practice and sleep is still an undergoing problem across the world and will always remain a struggle to regulate. The best thing to do is give teenagers grace. Just know that while you are sleeping, they are working. If you have any other questions about sleep schedules or further effects on teenagers, check out the links provided below. Sleep in Adolescents & Teenagers and Sleep
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