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Quinton Sorenson
Mr. Henricksen
English 1010
December 12, 2016
High School: What is Affecting our Students Sleep
Its 6 am, your alarm blaring, and you don't want to wake up for school. You
immediately regret your decision to stay up late to do homework or study for that test. Every
high school student has these feelings, and we all dread our early mornings. Each of us wants
that extra ten minutes of sleep. on those days that we wake up late, we are in a frenzy, forgetting
things we need, setting off a whirlwind day. I know from experience how this feels. I wake up
to turn off my alarm and roll back into bed. Forty five minutes later it's six forty five and I still
need to shower. I am going to be late.
In many ways society is setting students up to fail. We set extreme expectations to be
perfect. We train them to be robots, going through the same motions every day. Wake up early,
go to school, do your homework, go to bed early, and repeat the same things every day. The fun
is being taken away. On top of this, we have constant badgering from school systems saying that
our students are not doing good enough on tests and that they need more time in school to learn
more. Outside of school, many students work busy schedules and participate in social activities.
Although some may argue that there is one leading cause of sleep loss in high school students I
will argue that there are many effects and that they all equally disrupt teen sleep cycles. I will do
this by discussing what factors disrupt High School students sleeping patterns the most.
There are so many variables that affect sleep and its impossible to say that one is the
main cause. As high school students we all have days when it is hard to wake up. Why is that?

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Is it the crazy amounts of homework we have every day, or the demands of work and play
forcing us to go to bed late. Is it possible that early school start times are part of the problem?
The use of technology has to have an increasing effect. But which of all these factors has the
biggest impact, and why are problems nor manifesting until students are in high school?
As students go through the day many distractions come their way. From friends, social
media, or the weird kid in the corner doing his thing again, distractions are all around us. Cell
phones are one of the biggest distractions, and as technology improves these devices give access
to more and more every day. Not only are cell phones a distraction at school, they are also a
distraction at home. Time is taken away from homework to text, Snapchat friends, or scroll
through twitter feeds. As students go to sleep they are bombarded with notifications, delaying
their sleep and keeping their brain active longer. Other disruptions to the sleep environment
include activities that may take place in bed such as watching television, eating, working on
schoolwork, or talking on the phone (Nolan 225). With access to things like Netflix, Amazon
Prime, and Youtube on a phone, it is easy to delay bed time which in tun affects sleeping
patterns. Many students also have gaming systems in their rooms, which they play online with
friends till late into the night.
Among Year 9 students, the risk of daytime sleepiness was strongly associated
with more technologies in the bedroom. Evening tendency was associated with
being female, and with medium or high number of technologies. The ndings
were similar for Year 11 students. The only signicant nding among Year 12
students was a greater evening tendency for girls. There were no signicant
associations between technologies and either morning/evening tendency or
daytime sleepiness (Borlase 50).

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This is another situation in which the increased amount of technology in the bedroom is causing
problems with students sleep. Decreasing sleep time due to technology brings an increase to
students daytime sleepiness. We have all experienced this. In the drag of a boring or slow class,
you slowly inch towards sleep, your head falling ever so slightly with every passing second.
There is nothing to help you out of this daze. Then comes the awkward moment when your
teacher scares you awake. Is your phone worth that much to you?
Could it be possible that school starts too early, reducing the amount of REM sleep that
students get? According to Martha Hansen The combination of delayed circadian sleep phase
and early start times at high schools in the United States causes adolescents to lose sleep during
the school week. Chronic partial sleep loss has negative effects on neurocognitive performance,
mood, and health (1555). When students lose sleep on the weekdays they try to make it up on
the weekends. This only further disrupts their sleep cycles. Another big effect of lost sleep is a
change in health and mood. Anger, sadness, and impulsiveness have been tied to lack of sleep.
Sleep is a key time for the body to heal itself and store short term memory into long term
memory.
Adolescents who consistently get less than 8 hours of sleep miss out on the last 2
hours of sleep, which are the most important for storing new information. Three
major reviews of sleep loss and academic performance all concluded that sleep
deprivation affected school performance through lower grades; decreased
alertness and concentration; and an increase in anger, impulsivity, and sadness
(Nolan 225).
Nolan states here that getting less than 8 hours of sleep each night highly affects learning ability,
productiveness, and health of students. In school, new information which must be remembered

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is given all the time. Without the necessary sleep it is much harder, if not impossible, to
remember the information given during school. A tired student also has a higher chance of
falling asleep in class, missing out on key information required for the course. If students are not
sleeping at school they take long naps at home. This takes time away from homework, forcing
students to stay up later to do the home work, resulting in more lost sleep. The cycle does not
end, but it needs to, in order to get the most from our students.
The biggest factor of all is students busy schedules. Weather it is time with friends and
family, extracurricular activities like sports and clubs, having a job, or just taking time to relax
and focus on yourself. Our time is taken up very quickly.
This insufcient sleep in adolescents may be due to the school schedules
requiring them to wake up earlier, increased academic demands requiring them to
stay up late, expanding social opportunities, and increased access to drugs and
alcohol. Arakawa also reported that bedtimes became signicantly later,
accompanied by signicant increases in sleep debt as grade levels rose at junior
high school in Japan (Shin 453).
Expanding social opportunities are everywhere. Social interaction is a key to happiness, and yet
it would seem we are punishing our kids for taking social opportunities. They are given extreme
amounts of homework and expect them to put everything aside to do it. When they dont do it
grades plummet and parents are mad, further diminishing the opportunity for social activities.
High school athletes are committed to practice every day and compete one to two times a week.
Where is the time to do homework? Even presidents of clubs have busy schedules with club
meetings and activities, all which have to be planned and produced. While students have a

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responsibility to do well in school and do what is required for their classes, they also need time
to be young and have fun.
I do not believe that there is one specific reason that High School students lose sleep, but
rather it is a culmination of things. Technology, social disruptions, work, and so many more
things play a part students loss of sleep. Throughout the week students go through many
different things that impact them in different ways; they are bound to lose some sleep. The only
thing can be done is to help find a solution. Weather it is adjusting the start times in school to
give more time for morning sleep, reducing the amount of homework teachers can give,
opportunities for work with shorter hours and closer to home, or have parents step in more with
their children's technology use, changes must be made. They are our future and we need to find
the best way possible to help them succeed and become the best they can be.
There are many factors contributing to High School students sleep loss. Although some
may argue that there is one leading cause of sleep loss in high school students I will argue that
there are many effects and that they all equally disrupt teen sleep cycles. The best thing we can
do is help our students become the best they can be and put them in a situation to succeed. There
will always be something new to effect our students sleep and all we can do is help figure out a
way to overcome and succeed.

Works Cited:

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Borlase, Brigid Jane, Philippa Helen Gander, and Rosemary Helen Gibson. "Effects Of School
Start Times And Technology Use On Teenagers' Sleep: 1999-2008." Sleep & Biological
Rhythms 11.1 (2013): 46-54. Academic Search Premier. Web. 30 Nov. 2016.
Hansen, Martha, et al. "The Impact Of School Daily Schedule On Adolescent Sleep." Pediatrics
115.6 (2005): 1555-1561. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Dec. 2016.
Noland, Heather, et al. "Adolescents Sleep Behaviors And Perceptions Of Sleep." Journal Of
School Health 79.5 (2009): 224-230. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 Dec. 2016.
Shin, Chol, et al. "Sleep Habits, Excessive Daytime Sleepiness And School Performance
In High School Students." Psychiatry & Clinical Neurosciences 57.4 (2003): 451-453. Academic
Search Premier. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.