Students and Sleep

Students+and+Sleep

Throughout the course of the school year, students constantly complain of being tired. Most teenagers do not get the recommended eight and a half hours of sleep every night due to various reasons, including social media, extracurricular activities, or talking to friends on there cell phones. However, the most common reason students do not sleep enough is the excessive amount of homework and studying each student must complete every night.

On a regular night for Maddie Olivere (‘17), she arrives home around 6:30 after cross country or track practice. After showering and eating dinner, Maddie does not even begin homework until 8 PM. In order  to get a proper amount of sleep, she would need to be in bed by 10 PM, only leaving two hours for school work. Maddie is involved in difficult classes requiring a lot of time including AP Psychology, Honors Algebra II, and Honors American Literature. To succeed in only these three of her eight courses, would take about three hours a night, not even beginning to focus on the other five classes she takes. “I don’t feel like I get enough sleep every night because of the amount of homework I have,” Maddie explains, “ I also have practice every day until 5 and I usually don’t get home until closer to 6:30 which takes away from the amount of time I have each night to get homework done.” With all of the school work given to students, especially students who do activities after school, becomes it nearly impossible to get both the right amount of sleep as well as getting all of their homework done. This decision almost always ends with the student staying up into the late hours of the night to complete assignments and studying.