As we continue our path through high school, our workload adds up getting in the of how the way our sleep schedule is structured. Understandably, a lot of us want to stay up until 1 AM to finish that English essay or to study for that Spanish Test but unfortunately, we can’t. Our bodies need rest and time to rejuvenate, and the only way to get that is through sleep.
Did you know that teenagers need 9 ½ hours of sleep a day to fully function? Sleep is a vital part of your everyday life. Its many positive effects are components of everyone’s health and overall well-being. A lack of sleep can affect things such as your body weight, as it can lead to feelings of hunger and satiety or fullness. Symptoms of lack of sleep include yawning, moodiness, fatigue, depressed mood, and forgetfulness. This greatly affects the way you act on a daily basis, including in school. With sleep, you are able to focus on the work you do throughout the day. The National Sleep Foundation states: “Teens need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to function best. Most teens do not get enough sleep — one study found that only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights”. This shows that an astounding amount of teenagers get fewer hours of sleep than they really need.
Even though it’s very hard to follow a sleep schedule, making one may help you develop a habit of sleeping a specific number of hours each day. For example, iPhones carry a bedtime component in your clock app. If you log in the time that you go to bed and the time that you wake up, it will tell you the number of hours you sleep. You can put in a bedtime and wake up time that works for you and that adds up to at least 8 hours per day. This is a quick and easy way that you could not only count the number of hours you sleep but as well as for you to get into a specific sleeping schedule that works for you.