Any high school student, high school teacher or faculty member, parent, or person who has spent time with a teenager in recent decades can attest that the relationship between teens and sleep is an unwinnable tug-of-war. One image found on social networks like Facebook and Tumblr depicts the battle perfectly, representing a typical teenager’s decisions to pick two of the following: homework, social life, and sleep. Since the dawn of time, teenagers have been stereotyped as bedridden due to laziness (weheartit.com). But is this really the case?

Evidence indicates otherwise. According to the Women and Children’s Health Network, an average ten-year-old needs eight hours of sleep, and the average adult needs about seven and a half hours. But, your average teenager needs nine hours of beauty rest to be coherent enough to drive and complete other crucial activities dependent on sufficient sleep, including focusing in the classroom (cyh.com). Most teens, however, scoff at the idea of nine hours of sleep on a weeknight.

Take Junior Hailey Westwood, who gets between three and five hours of sleep a night during the week. Westwood juggles a variety of sports and difficult classes, and blames these activities for her lack of a good night’s rest. “To get enough sleep every night, I would have to either stop playing sports (field hockey and swim), which would make me unhappy,” she said, “or take easier classes which wouldn’t be good for college. So I’m pretty much stuck.”
Like many teens, Westwood compensates for this lack of sleep by snoozing for 12-13 hours on the weekend nights. However, Women and Children’s Health Network claims the feat cannot be done. “Having an extra long sleep-in [on] the weekend doesn’t really help you catch on sleep you have missed during the week,” it explains (cyh.com). What’s a sleep-thirsty teenager to do?

As expected, sleep deprivation makes concentration in class extremely difficult for many teenagers. What’s more, adolescents are not the only ones who feel the impact of this dilemma. English Teacher Richard Norton said, “I see students fall asleep in class all the time. They don’t do it out of disrespect; they’re simply exhausted. So many kids have such busy schedules. They have jobs, extracurricular [activities], and don’t get home until five or six at least, at which point they have to do homework!” With its district-enforced early 7:24 a.m. starttime, UC High does not facilitate students in their pursuit of sleep one bit.

Shenanigans of all sorts can arise in the classroom from a collective lack of sleep among rowdy teenagers. “One time, a kid fell asleep in my class, and we decided as a class not to wake him up when the bell rang, so he woke up to find the next class in the room and was very confused,” said Junior Tyler Culp. Junior Madison Agnew recalled, “A guy at my boyfriend’s school fell asleep in his biology class, which had a boa constrictor in it. They wrapped the snake around him and slammed a book down, waking him up to find a boa constrictor wrapped around him.” Teachers’ responses to snoozing students vary as well. “In Mr. Brown’s class, if you fall asleep he’ll drop a metal bat on the desk next to you,” Junior Sarah Levy explained.

While old wives tales suggest drinking warm milk and other nonsensical bits of advice for falling asleep easily, there are some useful tricks out there that can aid students trying to hit the hay effectively. Teenagers should try to keep a consistent routine in sleep habits.  Though difficult, this has proven effective, as has exercising regularly and avoiding long naps during the day (cyh.com). According to the National Sleep Research Project, falling asleep within five minutes of lying down is an indication of sleep deprivation (abc.net.au). Good luck finding a teenager who hasn’t done this!

With sports, homework, college applications, midterms, community service, and social lives to keep track of, the task of collecting enough hours of rest to be lucid, for many teens, is next to impossible. Hopefully, staying awake long enough to finish reading this article was not too onerous.