Sleep Deprivation

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Hi guys,</p>

<p>So junior year I have loaded up on AP and honors classes. Typically, I get 1-2 hours of homework per class (not including quiz/test prep time). In particular, my AP Gov. teacher assigns a 40-80 page reading(with notes) in our textbook. Also, with my ECs the earliest i get home by is 5 P.M. It's becoming harder and harder to go to sleep at an appropriate hour. LOL my social life has become practically nonexistent. How many hours of sleep do you guys typically get per night? How do you balance the coursework/sleep equilibrium? If there is no hope for sleep...how do you guys find ways to stay awake(legally)?</p>

2

<p>My sleep schedule isn’t good but it’s better than a lot of peoples. I meet with my friends about once a week, but my ECs are a joke.</p>

3

<p>Junior here.</p>

<p>This year I haven’t gone to bed before 11:30 once…I generally go to bed between 12:30-1:00, normally no later than 2. I get up at 6:50ish. This is admittedly mostly due to procrastination, but especially this semester, my homework load is not joke.</p>

<p>I have no idea why, but every day without fail, for like 30 minutes in chem (right in the middle of the day), I get really tired and feel like I’m going to fall asleep (and almost do), and then all of a sudden it’s like I snap out of a trance and am completely feel fine. I really struggle to pay attention, generally lose the battle, but don’t ever fully fall asleep. It’s really weird.</p>

4

<p>~5 to 6 hours. I’m only a sophomore, though, so my workload is relatively easy.</p>

5

<p>I generally get just under 7 hours of sleep (I go to bed at 11, get up at 6:40 usually). Honestly I just prioritize sleep about school the vast majority of the time. I am well aware that I won’t get much done when I’m tired, so homework is worth staying up until 3 am. </p>

<p>I am also pretty good at managing my time. If I have five minutes here and there - I use it. I always get a Spanish worksheet done at the end of the lunch, or I do a physics problem if I get to a class and there is still a few minutes left during passing period. Furthermore, I’ve figured out what subjects require a lot of work and what classes I don’t need to focus on as much. I know that my AP Lit teacher is a very lenient grader with essays because she doesn’t really like writing, so I don’t have to turn in a perfect essay. </p>

<p>IMO there’s no good reason why people continually get 5 or fewer hours of sleep. I have 5 AP classes and a college-level Spanish class, my mom has significant health issues and I have to take her to 3-5 appointments a week and provide constant care when I’m not at school, have a few clubs, regularly hang out with my friends, etc, and get 7 hours of sleep. So if you can manage your time effectively, there IS time for sleep. </p>

6

<p>Getting too little sleep is very unhealthy for you, and it will hurt your academic performance. When you’re tired it will take you longer to get your work done (and you won’t perform well) and this can be a vicious cycle. Try to make sure you are making good use of your time (turn off all unnecessary electronics when you are doing homework). Get off this site (and fb). Stop texting your friends. Also do as much work as you can on the weekend or other days when you may be less busy. If your teachers provide a syllabus with homework assignments, try to work a little ahead on the weekend to lighten your load during the week. If not, see if you can get some of them to provide that info. Take advantage of other time during the day when you might work. Study halls, lunch, bus rides. I know you probably want to chat with your friends during these times, but first get your study habits under control so you are getting enough sleep, then you will probably find that you can make time to hang out with them at lunch or whatever.</p>

7

<p>I’m a senior and I take college classes full-time, so I don’t have to go to school until later in the morning/afternoon. I usually get eight hours of sleep, and I sleep more than that on weekends anyway, but I don’t usually go to bed earlier than midnight. Last Thursday I stayed up all night because I was working on a paper, but it’s not a common thing. </p>

<p>I try to prioritize my homework so I’m working on the most immediately pressing stuff first. I put all my assignments on Google Calendar and I usually just work on stuff that’s due in the next two or three days, with the exception of long-term projects. Other than that, I think it helps to do the most difficult assignments first because I always lose momentum as I go. Sometimes I go to the library because it’s quiet and I don’t get distracted as much.</p>

8

<p>Yeah, I hate staying afterschool (when I don’t have robotics) because I’d rather go home and change into my pajamas and sleep forever, but when I have a lot of work I force myself to stay at school or the town library because work better in those places. As opposed to home, with my bed and food and tv.</p>

<p>The days I go straight home and waste my life away I end up only getting around 5 or 4 hours of sleep, but the days where I crunch through all of my work right after school at the library I can get a decent 8 or 7 hours.</p>

9

<p>Truthfully, only about four hours. Days before certain tests, it is typically thirty minutes. I don’t think I am taking a hard course load, especially compared to others, but my teachers surly do love to assign random, tedious tasks.</p>

10

<p>I could potentially go to sleep earlier than I do - but I tend to go to bed by choice at 11pm and I wake up at 7am, so I get around a solid 8 hours. </p>

11

<p>If you can get to school early, working before school even starts helps me a lot! I can hardly focus on my work after school when I’m exhausted. For some reason I can get things done really efficiently in the morning…Maybe you should try this!</p>

12

<p>I don’t think I’ve gone to sleep before eleven this school year (I usually crash at about twelve)- and I wake up at five to six. It’s not pretty- my school basically quite literally runs on Dunkin’. (Well, Starbucks really, but you get the idea.) I have a lot of homework and I get home between five and six depending on the day (in fact, when I have physical therapy, like today, I can get home as late as eight in which case I’m sunk).
I don’t drink caffeinated drinks (I hate coffee and soda) so honestly I’m not sure how I stay awake. I’m usually semi-catatonic in class. </p>

13

<p>Sleep deprivation is really bad for you. My life improved so much after I started getting a solid 8-9 hours of sleep per night. And I take 5 APs, play a varsity sport, have a job three days per week, volunteer one day per week, and work out nearly every day. I’m still in bed by 11 at latest every night. Time management is so key. </p>

14

<p>I know that if I managed my time I could totally go to sleep by 11:00 every night… but honestly, after a long day at school, followed by ECs, I kinda just wanna go home and laze about… hence, I end up sleeping in the 11:30-12:00 range on a normal night.</p>

15

<p>I’m a senior. Honestly, I can’t sleep for more than 6 or 7 hours at a time. Most nights I fall asleep around 1 and wake up at 5:30, waking up every hour and a half or so, haha. I can go short spurts of time (~a week or so) with an hour a night… on average I get three and a half, or thereabouts. I take 4 APs and Ancient Greek (which is taught by a classics PhD and is more time consuming than any of my other APs), have leadership positions in five school clubs, and stage manage all of our school’s productions (tech week is when I tend to get an hour or less per night). I don’t usually get to start homework until ~7:30pm because of rehearsals.</p>

<p>One strategy that works well for me (I’m a morning person to the extreme) is to work until you’ve run out of metaphorical gas, then wake up early to finish the rest of your work. If you’re leaving an English paper and coming back to it later, stop writing in the middle of a sentence so that you can jump right back in to it. Every moment you have free time, you should be trying to get ahead with your work. If you don’t have time to actually do all of your work, at least skim through all of it and get an idea of what it is about and what questions you may have.</p>

<p>As for staying awake, there’s a lot of different strategies I use. First off, don’t sit somewhere comfortable. This sucks, I know, but you’re a hundred times more likely to fall asleep reading Moby Dick on the sofa with a warm blanket on then sitting in that uncomfortable dining room chair. If I’m reading, I will hold the book and pace with it, possibly mouthing the words and adding “inflections” to keep myself immersed in the task. If all else fails, I like to pretend that the author is my mortal enemy and I disagree with everything they’re saying, and try to write my margin-notes in the snarkiest way possible.</p>

<p>Oh, and small breaks help. You’re NOT going to be effective if you just go at your work for hours and hours. Once you finish an assignment, treat yourself to 5 minutes on Facebook, or a funny cat video on Youtube or whatever you kids like nowadays.</p>

<p>Essentially, always find ways to make things interesting and look at them from different perspectives. Switch things up - use different colored pens for different questions unless this concept really disturbs you like it does me. Making small changes to your work style while still being productive will keep you focused (or, at least, such things keep me focused - I’d recommend trying them out).</p>

<p>Also, Bengal spice tea is great - it’s caffeine free, but the spiciness helps keep me awake. :)</p>

16

<p>I’m physically unable to sleep a decent amount of time unless I am really tired. I do usually have a lot of time during week days, my ECs meet only a few days, and I can get my homework done in a reasonable time, if I start when I get home I’m probably done by 5-7 ish 'o lock (get home at like 2:50). I can only sleep like 5-6 hours though. If I go to sleep at like a reasonable hour, I just lay here until there are 5 or 6 hours left. If I do other stuff and then go to sleep when there are 5 or 6 hours left I can fall sleep reasonably faster.</p>

17

<p>I’m a junior and I take 3 APs and stay after school almost every day and don’t get home until like 5. I don’t start my work until 6. Then I do a section of an SAT so that takes an hour. So I actually start my homework at 7 and work until 9, eat dinner, and work until about 12. The earliest I’ve gone to bed recently is 11:45. I wake up at like 6:50 because I usually have some club meeting before school. I end up getting really sleepy in the afternoon which is when I have either chemistry or physics (depending on the day) and it’s really hard to focus. I try chewing gum to stay awake. But after the flavor wears down, I get sleepy again. I also sip some water but that also has a temporary effect. So then I try to draw or write something on my paper but I keep listening to the lecture so I don’t zone out or fall asleep. Sometimes I tap my feet to some song that’s stuck in my head or drum my fingers on my desk.</p>

<p>These attempts sometimes work and sometimes don’t. Maybe I’ll have to start drinking some coffee…</p>

18

<p>Don’t get addicted to coffee. Or anything. </p>

<p>Meetings before and after school? Wow. Are you overworking yourself? How many activities do you do? @animpaffliction</p>

19

<p>The after school activities have been cut a bit because I’m just way too tired at the end of the day but when tennis season starts, it’s gonna be hell with practice Monday through Friday till 6. But I have to go to a meeting or something like every day before school. Considering there are other people who do way more activities than I do and get good grades, I don’t think I’m overworking myself. I just need to manage my time better.</p>

20

<p>Why don’t you do your SAT prep on the weekend and sleep an extra hour? </p>