<p>I've noticed a trend lately, and I felt like taking a minute to address it. It seems that most high school kids, even top students academically, do not get enough sleep. Students attribute this to busy schedules. They simply have too many responsibilities and not enough time for adequate sleep. </p>
<p>From my own experience, when I do not sleep enough, I am not the same person academically. I am, in fact, a much worse student, much slower mentally (memorizing/recalling info, etc.), not to mention that I don't feel well physically. My question is why don't students consider sleep a necessary aspect of their educations, just as they do time budgeting for things like studying and doing homework. Am I the only one who is affected so drastically by being tired? If I''m not, it would make sense to me that students would do everything in their power to sleep enough so that their time while awake is targeted and used more effectively. (Maybe you'll only need to study 3/4ths as much if you are rested versus if you are tired.) </p>
<p>With that said, I realize that every person needs a different amount of sleep. I find that I am functioning at my best or near it when I get 7 and 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep. However, if I am suffering from anxiety (I usually dream a lot under these circumstances), my sleep is not as effective, meaning I might get 8 hours and not feel as rested as I otherwise would.</p>
<p>What are your observations/opinions on the sleepless, sort of epidemic, if you will? Is sleep as important as I am making it out to be?</p>
<p>I think sleep is drastically important. This is a quote from the National Sleeping Foundation “Teens need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep each night to function best (for some, 8 1/2 hours is enough). Most teens do not get enough sleep — one study found that only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights.”</p>
<p>And those 15% are probably ones who are not an average CCer, ive found that my body does better when i sleep alot, but im not necessarily inhibited when i get 5and a half to 6 hours of sleep. Ive learned, somehow, to perform extremely well under low sleep and high stress so it doesn’t affect me as much as it seems to affect you.</p>
<p>I wish I could get that much sleep every-night. It would be wonderful. But I’m not even going to dream of that. Sometimes I feel like things are more difficult with less sleep. But I’m basically used to being sleep depraved so it’s fine. Sometimes I can wake up feeling perfect with 5-6 hours of sleep. No very often but it makes things easier when it happens. As for scheduling time, I just couldn’t do it. I stay up thinking about the most random things. Usually midnight but sometimes after. It seems important to get enough sleep, but, as everyone loves to point out here, You have to pick between a social life, enough sleep and good grades. I didn’t choose sleep.</p>
<p>Actually, I think there was a study done a while ago stating that NO ONE should get anything besides 7 hours. If you get under 7 hours, you’re going to face the common effects we all know about. However, here’s the interesting part. In their study, they found that getting OVER 7 hours of sleep will result in a shorter lifespan by about 10 YEARS!</p>
<p>I’m sure you can find the article if you google it; not sure about it’s validity though :P</p>
<p>Personally, I would love to get 7 hours each day. BUT I usually get about 4-5 hours. Why? I’m trying to “train” my body to get better at handling sleep-deprivation because it will save my life in med school/neurosurgeon, once I become one. :D</p>
<p>If you take a nap at the company you work for, they will look down on you, and probably fire you, but it is actually a smart, and productive thing to do.</p>
<p>But yeah. It itches me the wrong way when people attribute their lack of sleep to a busy schedule. A lot of it could be too many things to be done, but it could also be a matter of mediocre time management (ie reading online articles and doing homework in a 5:1 ratio).</p>
<p>And totally. When I can get 10 hours of sleep I feel like a genius, or like my mind is working too well to be true. Most school days, though, I fight to get 7 hours and end up slow-witted and dull by seventh hour. Ah well.</p>
<p>I sleep 6 hours on the weekdays and close to 12 on the weekends. I have no trouble focusing in class though. Hopefully being able to run on little sleep will come in handy in medical school and residency. Besides, I can sleep when I’m dead</p>
<p>Not only do I function far below what’s needed (particularly in math class), I get depressed if I go for more than a couple of days without sleep. Sometimes it seems that getting into a good college is partly just ability to forgo sleep :(</p>
<p>I normally sleep around 4-6 (mostly 5) hours on school nights. Although sleep-deprived, I’m still somewhat mentally sharp. The only times when I’m really tired are when I first wake up in the mornings and on Friday afternoons. The continuous lack of sleep hits me all at once really hard when I get back home from school on Fridays.</p>
<p>I sleep 5-8 hours on a school night mainly depending on which days my heavy work load falls on. If I get a lot of work on a marching band night, I’ll get little to no sleep. But if the conditions are right, I can get 10 hours sometimes (which feels incredible.) I do operate well on 7 hours a night. Anything less and I’m tired out of my mind, anything less and I’m a little bit sluggish (but it still feels better than only 6).</p>
<p>I sleep an average of 6 hours a day on weekday nights and about 10 hours on weekend nights. If I sleep more than that, I find that I’m more alert in the mornings, but slowly become more and more drowsy as the day continues.</p>
<p>I always get 9-10 hours. The very rare exceptions are when I’m traveling (although I sleep on the plane; I don’t even travel often, though); even when I go out somewhere at night, I always oversleep the next day to make up for it if possible.</p>
<p>Sleep is vital. That being said, its past midnight, and I still average 4-5 hours nightly.</p>
<p>After time, you get used to it and you’re able to wake up easily. But for me, I have two periods- 3rd and 5th, where I tend to doze off. While I’m surviving, it is these two classes that I simply feel unengaged.</p>
<p>You can adjust to less sleep over time. Your effort in classes will also show that trend. There are two reasons why we sleep so late; procrastination or uber long projects (6 hrs is a bit long though), and the Internet. If you finish both by midnight, you’ll be thankful.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I myself am a full fledged procrastinator. Even I cannot heed my own advice. Dont follow this path.</p>
<p>I get 6-7 hours a sleep a night (usually). Ideally I’d probably get a few more, but it’s a combination between procrastination/busy-ness/bad time management AND that I just plain don’t feel tired at 10 or 11. I don’t even feel tired at 12:30. I’ll be exhausted the whole day and “wake up” at 8 or 9, and it’s really hard to remember how much I wanted to sleep earlier in the day.</p>
<p>On weekends, my whole schedule shifts so that I go to bed at ~2 and wake up at 12-1, which probably isn’t particularly good for my sleeping patterns either.</p>
<p>I usually get less than 6 hours of sleep - sometimes as little as 4. I can partially attribute this to a busy schedule. Sometimes, I wake up at 5:30 for school, I don’t get home until 5 pm when I have a club after school, and then if I have a lot of homework I can really be working until midnight.</p>
<p>Most nights, though, I just find myself unable to fall asleep before midnight. Of course, I’m really tired all day, but then at night I just can’t fall asleep early enough. And then I have to wake up at 5:30 or 6 for school. It’s really starting to become a problem. I sometimes fall asleep in class just from exhaustion. But then at night, I just can’t go to bed that early. I’m not an insomniac, because I have no problem with either napping during the day or going to bed late enough at night, but I just can’t do it before midnight. It’s not really affecting my grades yet, but I don’t like feeling exhausted all the time.</p>
<p>So sleep is important to me, but I have a hard time actually getting the amount I need.</p>
<p>if you have to sleep less than 7 hours to get into a top college, it seriously isn’t worth it. if you get into a top college, and you’re going to get even more work (i.e. same or less sleep). and then if you try to get a really good job after college, you also won’t get enough sleep.
this is why people shouldn’t be over ambitious.</p>