Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
sleep among teens
Significance of Sleep Deprivation to senior high school students
empirical review on sleep duration and academic performance
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: sleep among teens
Hitting their obnoxious alarm clocks, millions of high school students in the United States wake up at 6:00 am for school every day. Long before the sun rises, students rush through their morning rituals of washing, dressing, and eating. Aside from school, students often have sports, clubs, work, and social time. Once students return home, they begin their homework assignments that take several hours and cause them to sleep late. As a result, high school students who need a minimum of eight to nine hours of sleep barely receive seven. This shortage in sleep often causes several detrimental consequences. However, there is a simple solution to this dilemma. High school classes should start later in the day because the associated lack of sleep negatively affects behavior, academic success, and physical health.
With minimal sleep, high school students are often tardy and barely awake for their first period class. When students don’t receive their necessary sleep, they find themselves unfocused and easily distracted. Like a computer, the human brain requires time to reboot in the morning. Like an overworked hard-drive, students take a longer time to restart with less sleep. Scientist Matthew Kirby explains that reduced sleep delays the chemical release of nitric oxide which causes a late and prolonged “wake-up” period (56). During this time, students are unable to fully process information and feel dazed. Aside from a slow thought process, slept deprivation is usually accompanied by irritability, frustration irrationality due to tiredness and stress. As a parent, it is unfathomable to even consider that their child might resort to drugs or alcohol as a form of relaxant, but according to a study by Heather Noland, up to 15% of ad...
... middle of paper ...
...he Circadian sleep cycle of teenagers, most students would continue to feel tired around 11:00 pm and fall asleep (226). Since students will continue to have the same sleep time, school districts should implement a later start time to increase sleep. Furthermore, because extracurricular activities are voluntary and not a primary source of education, they should be considered a separate responsibility and not affiliated with academics.
Sleep is a necessity in all people, especially in growing high school students. Many researchers have found that without sleep, there are various negative consequences, especially for teenagers. Sleep is a crucial element of good behavior, physical health, and academic success for high school students. Parents can influence school district policies and make an effort to have late school start times to avoid potential problems.
How many times has this happened to you; it’s six thirty on a Tuesday morning, your alarm has already gone off twice, your still laying in bed and your bus comes in twenty minutes. This is an everyday occurrence at my house. It is a proven statistic that the average high school student does not get enough sleep. While some experts like Dr. Lee Yanku say “It is not the schools starting time that is the problem as to why students don’t get enough sleep, it is because of facebook, myspace and cell phones” The truth behind it is that we can’t budget sports, homework and extracurricular activities into one day and still get nine hours of sleep. This is hurting student’s academic averages and needs to change. Changing the school time will help boost academic averages among students, and isn’t th...
Later school start times are scientifically proven to help teens in many beneficial ways. Teenagers and adolescents have sleep patterns. According to the article,¨ Teens and Sleep¨ Teens bodies naturally
For some high school students, sleep is not considered a necessity – but rather, a luxury. Sports, extra-curricular activities, and Fine Arts programs play an important role in students’ lives and require a significant amount of commitment and dedication. Social life aside, some students have taken the additional endeavors of acquiring jobs, participating in volunteer activities, and taking extra Advanced Placement classes. With too many tasks to fulfill in a twenty-four hour day, high school students are forced to substitute for the most essential condition of all: sleep.
One of the many arising problems of America’s students is they are becoming sleep deprived. The busy daily schedules of children and teens are not allowing them to get enough sleep. “Less sleep is unhealthy especially with the new research that as teenagers move through teenage years, they need increasing amounts of sleep. Nine hours per night is the necessary amount to avoid behaviors associated with sleep deprivation” (Final Report Summary, 2001). Among other things, sleep deprivation is causing students to sleep during class instead of being awake and aware. When the students are sleeping in class, they are not retaining information being taught to them. Researchers have now proven that the majority of adolescents retain more information later in the day. Contrary to this information, America’s school systems are programmed to begin early in the day, which according to the sleep rhythms of most teenagers, they should still be sleeping.
As is indicated in the essay Understanding Adolescents ’ Sleep Pattern and School Performance: a Critical Appraisal, self-reported shortened total sleep time, erratic sleep/wake schedules, late bed and rise times, and poor sleep quality are negatively associated with academic performance for adolescents from middle school through the college years. In this research, not only adolescents, but also pre-adolescents and freshman students in college were involved. After investigating the students’ detailed sleep habits, this research, along with several other researches worldwide, ended up in the same result as described above.
Some students may not be as affected by sleep rhythms as others, but for many, staying awake in class is a daily struggle. Recent surveys have reported that nearly twenty-five percent of high school students fall asleep during...
Studies conducted over a nearly 30 year span have consistently shown only a small fraction of adolescents get the 9 or more hours of sleep they require to function at their best. While teenagers are notorious for causing their own sleep difficulties, sleep loss among adolescents is confined primarily to school nights. “Sleep deprivation is epidemic among adolescents, with potentially serious impacts on mental and physical health, safety, and learning. Most teenagers undergo a biological shift to a later sleep-wake cycle, which can make early school start times particularly challenging.” says
Sleep is extremely important to all of us, but students and teens aren't getting enough of it and it’s a problem. When teenage students are tired, that increases obesity, illness, anxiety, and depression. No parent or teacher wants their kids to have those qualifications so that's one of the reasons why school should start later.
It’s seven thirty in the morning, the time that most American high schools begin class. Instead of being chipper and ready to learn, most teenagers, at this time of the morning, can barely remain awake. These puffy eyed pupils are by no means ready to learn. Sixty percent children under 18 reported being sleepy during the day, with another fifteen percent reporting that they had fallen asleep during the school day within the past year (National Sleep Foundation, Dozing). Though adolescents require a larger amount of sleep than younger children, they usually receive much less (Indiana University Center for Adolescent Studies). The amount of sleep a teenager receives affects him or her both physically and mentally. Sleep deprived teenagers are more likely to be irritable, be depressed, not perform up to their capabilities in school, and have a decreased ability to handle complex tasks (National Parent Information Network). Though teenage sleep deprivation is a big problem, some simple solutions such as rescheduling the school day to fit teenagers’ biological needs, setting consistent sleep schedules, and teaching children the importance of proper sleep habits can easily remedy this problem.
Adolescents all around the world stay up playing video games, playing on their phones, playing around with their friends, or cramming in an assignment that’s due the next day due to their procrastination. With all these contributing factors, sleep is the last thing on any teen’s mind. School work has a big effect on teens while trying to do it and do it right and get a good night’s sleep every night. The more and more sleep you get each night, the easier it is to get better grades in school, understand things better, and progress easier and faster. Lack of sleep can cause teens to not care thus making their effort poor on their work while their drive and motivation to learn is
One reason why high school should start later than elementary schools is that with such early start times, the average high school students do not get enough sleep and are considered sleep deprived. According to a survey completed by The National Sleep Foundation, only 20% of high school students sleep the optimal 9 hours on school nights and 60% of children under the age of 18 have complained that they are tired throughout the school day to their parents (“School Start”). Sleep depravity is very common among high school students. With disadvantaged sleep patterns, adolescents have decreased mental sharpness and ability to pay attention during school hours. Therefore, grades and test scores are lower than their potential. In fact, “a recent survey by the National Sleep Foundation showed that only 20 percent of teenagers report getting the optimal 9 hours of sleep o...
70% of high school students, like you and me, are sleep deprived; this means getting less than 7 hours of sleep. The teenage body needs relevant to 8 to 10 hours of sleep because the body is going through an important stage of growth and development. We get this sleep at delayed hours, like 11 p.m. and 12 a.m., due to chemical imbalance during our teenage years. In behalf of this delayed balance and early rising for school purposes, the body and brain are negatively impacted. The only known solution to this epidemic is schools having a later start time. Schools should start later because it could eliminate mental disorders and improve health, causing classroom grades to exceed.
Sleep Deprivation is a growing concern in modern day with people in general especially students. The lack amount of sleep students get on a daily basis has a huge impact over their lives. Sleep is essential for everyone and has a significant contribution. However, in today’s society young adolescents are receiving less time of sleep due to many reasons. Although, many do not realize as they lose more sleep there are bad side effects that come along with that which could potentially hurt these students internally and externally. Foremost, sleep deprivation needs to be regulated in order to refix how students are sleeping and to better reflect on each and every individual.
Every day in the United States, students find themselves lying in bed struggling to get out of bed and prepare himself for the school day. Teenagers have spent too much time the night before on social media or watching netflix. However, current research from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that biological and physiological factors play a major role in determining how teenagers’ brains simply are not designed to sleep more than a few hours each night, and as a result, teens are sleepy and have trouble focusing on school work in their early morning classes, and they exhibit behavior issues and reckless driving. This issue is not an easy matter to resolve without facing some difficulties, but every problem requires some sacrifices to become feasible. The solution is complicated, but for the sake of safety and success, schools should change start times so that
Fifty six percent of students report being tired throughout the school day, which can lead to missed information and confusion (Wysong). According to this statistic, over half the students in class are not going to achieve their maximum learning potential in school. In order to avoid this problem, a teenager's brain typically needs to sleep from 11:00 pm to 8:00 am (“High schools starting later to help sleepy teens”). However, most high schools require students to be in class as early as 7:15 or 7:30 am. As a result, many adolescents simply do not have the opportunity to get enough rest. Changing the traditional school time to start later in the day will benefit adolescent sleep cycles, promote learning, and prevent disease by regulating the body. Ideally,...