Nowadays, only 15% of teenagers in the US sleep over 8 hours, the required amount of sleep. Sleep deprivation is a huge problem among teens, and it can have consequences such as aggressiveness  towards people, and it also causes you to eat way too much, which can lead to another problem: gaining weight. Finishing work, phone usage, and outside of school activities all contribute to sleep deprivation. Teenagers rarely sleep 8+ hours a day.

If 85% of teenagers don’t get enough sleep, iSchool students must also suffer from sleep deprivation. Are YOU getting enough sleep?

Sophie Scheider, a freshman, goes to sleep at 12-2 am, and wakes up at 7am. That is approximately 5-7 hours of sleep, and it is not enough for a teenager’s brain to function well. On the weekends, she sleeps at 2-4 am and wakes up at 8 am. Still, she sleeps only about 4-6 hours.

She has tried to set resolutions for a better sleep, but it did not work out. Resolutions are pretty hard to keep, after all.

“I’ve tried to make resolutions to sleep at 11, but it only lasted like three days,” she says.

Getting enough sleep is very, very important because sleep helps to keep your memory and your thinking sharp, and releases many hormones that have positive benefits to your body. Luckily, we do have students who follow the required time to sleep.

Freshman Shanee Kirschley sleeps at around 11 on school nights and wakes up at around 7:00. Before she goes to bed, she brushes her teeth and checks her phone. She also sets her alarm clock in order to wake up the next morning.

Shanee also has set up resolutions to sleep before 10:30 on school nights, and she usually keeps this resolution. However, some factors are making her unable to adapt to this resolution.

Sometimes, she has dance competitions or classes that last until after 6:00 pm.

And, a lot of us suffer from trying to keep our grades up, and one key factor is homework, and sometimes it can take really long time for her to complete.

Julian Lai, freshman, usually goes to sleep at around 10:30 to 11, and wakes up and 6-6:30. This is approximately 7 ½ hours, a common amount of sleep the iSchool students have reported. Until he goes to bed, he just sits around or does games until he finds something to do. If he doesn’t find anything to do, he just goes to sleep.

¨On a school night, I´m normally just sitting around, I don’t really know. On the weekends I game or sit around, I kinda just do what I want on the weekends.¨

Many students reported that they do something to cure their boredom right before they sleep. Most of the time, they use their phones before they go to sleep. However, because the blue light from the phones restrains the production of melatonin, which is an important hormone associated with sleep, using your phone right before going to sleep can keep you awake for longer.

The consequences of not getting enough sleep can be very detrimental. When teens don’t get enough sleep, it can cause aggression and also develop addictions such as nicotine and caffeine in order to boost one’s energy. Loss of sleep can also cause one to get pregnant at a younger age, since teens who sleep less will suffer from impaired judgment which leads to poor decision making.

The problem with lots of students and their amount of sleep they get is mostly staying up using phones and extracurricular activities. This shows students can lose sleep from being very busy or being very bored. However, sleeping 8+ hours in your teens years is important to do well in school, so students should make sure to wake up and go to sleep at the right time to sleep.