Not even the excitement of the holiday season can overpower the dread of first-semester finals, no matter how many cookies you eat! For many students, this is one of the most stressful and chaotic times of the year, with traveling, family gatherings, shopping, and the cherry on top: finals. It is a struggle to balance all of this and still maintain a healthy mental state. The pressure to cram as much knowledge as possible into your brain leads to sleepless nights. However, these late study sessions could be the culprit for poor academic performance.
A healthy amount of sleep for a teenager is 8-10 hours, which means going to bed around ten, or even before. In reality, this is a rare occurrence for the average high school student, especially with extracurricular activities. According to Stanford Medicine, “Teens have the unique challenge of a biological shift in their circadian clock, causing them to struggle to fall asleep before 11 pm.” In turn, teenagers wake up an extra two hours later, achieving maximum rest from 11 pm to 8 am. However, most students end up setting their alarms to 6 am, which is an entire two hours of necessary rest completely lost.
Although most high school students are aware of their bad sleep habits, they may not be so aware of its consequences, which are plentiful. Better health explains that a lack of sleep also increases appetite, especially for highly caloric foods. A student’s nutritional needs must be managed to thrive academically, which is something that is affected by less sleep. In terms of mental health, sleep deprivation changes mood, increasing feelings of anxiety, depression, paranoia, and stress, and it can even increase thoughts of suicide. It also dampens people’s cognitive abilities. With these obstructive factors, the distraction of the holidays, the stress of finals, and an approaching winter break, it is crucial for students to maintain self-discipline.
Another factor is shifting hormones, which already have such a colossal impact on a teenager’s mood, but a lack of sleep only makes it worse, for it is harder for teenagers to regulate their moods when they are tired. In addition, students are more prone to a negative mindset, for less sleep causes them to get upset and frustrated more easily. With a limited mental capacity to deal with adversity and challenging scenarios, it only makes sense that an individual is less successful.
Although many students believe that staying up to study will improve their academic performance, it only hurts them in the end. Developing these bad sleeping habits at a young age sets a person up for an exhausting future. Good sleep habits are important to implement as early as possible, especially with many high school students continuing their education in college, trade school, etcetera. In order to get the most out of schooling, students must place more value on a good night’s sleep, or else there will be a constant struggle to catch up on rest. This is my warning to stop chasing sleep and to start catchin’ some Z’s!
