Sleep is a precious thing; at least that is what any teenager will tell you if you wake him/her up before 8 am. Every day teens are learning how sleep affects more and more of their short-term and long-term life. Fatigue can make it hard to get along with your family and friends, hurt your scores on tests, or limit you on the soccer field. A brain that craves sleep will get it, even when you don’t expect it. Drowsiness and falling asleep at the wheel cause more than 100,000 car crashes every year, and it’s most likely to happen to people ages 16-25. Teens need about nine hours of sleep each night to function at their finest. For some teenagers, eight and a half hours is enough, but some need even more. Most teens do not get enough sleep than even the bare minimum suggests. A study in Fairfax, Va., found that only six percent of children in the 10th grade and only three percent in the 12th grade get the recommended amount of sleep. This means a hard day of drowsiness awaits teens once the bell rings. If a teen drinks coffee to help perk up in the morning but find by 1:00 he/she is hitting a wall and cannot manage through the day without sleeping through your history notes, the teen might want to consider trying to sleep a little earlier each night. “Sleep is not optional. It’s a health imperative, like eating, breathing and physical activity,” according to Dr. Judith A. Owens. “Long term consequences of insufficient sleep increase the risks of high blood pressure, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and obesity,” said Dr. Owens, pediatric sleep specialist at Children’s National Health System in Washington. Sleeplessness is also linked to risk-taking behavior, depression and suicidal ideation, and car accidents.
It’s not all our fault though; the first bell for school to start doesn’t help the situation. In a 2008 study in Virginia Beach, where classes began at 7:20 to 7:25 a.m., the crash rate for 16 to 18 year olds was 41% higher than in adjacent Chesapeake, Va., where school started at 8:40 to 8:45. Grades and attitudes of the students also improved markedly. The lead author of the study, Dr. Robert Vorona of Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, suggested that starting the school day later could result in less sleep deprivation and more alert drivers. At this stage in life we are more attuned to fall asleep later at night and wake up later in the day. If school schedules bent to accommodate this, students would not be so tired.