Cody Leff ('11) rests during a study hall period. He generally feels the effects of insufficient sleep towards the middle of the day and benefits from taking a couple of minutes off his work to rest. - Isabel Moore
It was unintentional. As Jake Tishgart (’11) sat in his C-period English class in the midst of the teacher’s lecture, his focus dwindled. He struggled to keep his eyes open, all efforts thwarted by the wave of exhaustion sweeping his body.
It wasn’t a lack of interest in the discussion on The Great Gatsby. Instead, he attributes his exhaustion to the overwhelming amount of homework he had undertaken the previous night.
He surrendered his efforts and let himself drift off, only to wake up 10 minutes later, having slept through potentially critical information.
“I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when (my teacher) turned on the projector and turned off the lights,” said Tishgart, “resulting in me turning off my brain.” Although we might like to brush off this occurrence as an irregularity in a system that promotes feasible workloads and early bedtimes, we cannot; neither are true. The teacher’s lack of surprise indicates that Jake’s situation has been normalized, occurring regularly in many high school environments.
Between increasing academic and extracurricular demands, and teenagers’ natural sleep tendencies, sleep deprivation in high school students has become a crucial issue. According to Laurence Epstein, instructor at Harvard Medical School and Medical Director of Sleep HealthCenters in Boston, teenagers require nine hours of sleep on average in order to function at the highest level throughout the day.
Unfortunately, according to the National Sleep Foundation, most adolescents don’t come close to this number — at least not in a consistent way. In an online survey on Feb. 8, 15 out of 22 Urban students replied that they get seven hours of sleep or less on a normal school night. According to Epstein, getting fewer than nine hours of sleep impairs most adolescents’ operative abilities, which explains the responses of 20 students who said they would like to get more sleep.
Students say sleep deprivation definitely has an impact on academic performance. “It makes it a lot harder to think analytically, stay focused in class, and in general puts you very far behind during the day and in doing homework because you are not fully engaged,” said Sarah Ach ('11).
However, poor grades or lackluster after-school energy aren’t the only downsides to fatigue. According to Epstein, sleep deficiency is connected to diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, shortened life span, and misdiagnosis of ADHD and other learning disabilities, among other health woes.
What is behind the sleep deprivation? “I think homework may be the biggest issue,” says Justine Palefsky (’09). “I know some people who stuff themselves with caffeine to stay up and work until 2 (a.m.) or 3 (a.m.), and then wake up early to finish up (their homework) before school.”
Furthermore, teenagers are naturally programmed to fall asleep and wake up late. A study conducted by Mary Carskadon, professor at Brown University, revealed that levels of melatonin (a sleep-inducing hormone) in adolescents’ saliva are significantly lower at night and higher in mornings than for adults and young children. As a result, it is physiologically difficult for most teenagers to fall asleep before 11:00 p.m.
Based on this information, various schools have experimented with later start times. In Minneapolis, high schools moved the beginning of the school day from 7:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m., resulting in increased daily attendance and grades. In Fayette County, Kentucky, high schools changed start times from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., and found that local auto accidents involving high school students decreased by 15 percent.
Unfortunately, most of our culture belittles sleep issues. “It is sanctioned that to do well in school, or be more successful, or be better at something, losing sleep is just part of the deal,” says Kaern Kreyling, Urban’s school counselor. “One is made to feel weak if they need to sleep for nine hours, or if they want to step out of the achievement cooker.”
Kreyling urges self-reflection as a means of realizing one’s habits and needs. “Recognizing that you’re not happy with your sleep and then consulting with someone about how you want it to be better” is the first step in resolving sleep issues, she says.