The students of Clayton High School walk into the front doors of school often dead on their feet from lack of sleep, hunched over from a heavy backpack and anxious for an upcoming test. As focused as our students are on building up their mental capacity, they often forget to take care of their bodies as well.
Clayton students work their minds so hard everyday that they neglect to realize that their physical bodies are slowly deteriorating. From the moment they wake up after an “ample” six hours of sleep, to a whole day of sitting in chairs, the students of CHS face many health issues that may not seem serious now, but could be very detrimental in the long run.

So why is sleep so important?

According to “Young Adult Health” sleep is a basic human need. And young adults need sleep the most because their brains and bodies are still developing.
Students often wonder why teachers tell us to get lots of sleep before an exam or test. But few CHS students actually heed this advice, however the alarming truth is that sleep is vital to the learning process.
A study by Harvard University showed that the brain consolidates information during sleep hours. Sleep after a lesson is learned is crucial because learning continues to take place while a person is asleep.
The bottom line – kids don’t get enough sleep. Most students at CHS are sitting in class all day, sleep deprived. Among many factors, this has a lot to do with stress.
Counselor Debra McBride sees sleep and stress as a major issue among high school students.
“[S]leep deprivation and stress are certainly major health concerns at CHS,” McBride said. “Students usually recognize an increased level of stress, but the symptoms of sleep deprivation are often overlooked or attributed to other causes.”
According to adolescent health doctor, Katie Plax, it is extremely important to manage stress in high school.
“High school is a very important time to manage stress,” Plax said. “Stress can cause physical damage like headaches and stomach aches, as well as difficulty falling asleep.”
Dr. Mary Carskadon of Brown University told the New York Times, ”we just ignore these bad feelings from not enough sleep and get used to it,” she said. ”We forget what it’s like to feel good, and how much more efficiently you can do things.”

Sleep deprivation and what it looks like

It is difficult to know if you are sleep deprived, that is why it is important to determine what feels normal versus what is normal after a week of staying up late.
“Feeling tired is one sign of insufficient sleep time, but it’s certainly not the only indicator,” McBride said. “Common symptoms include an inability to focus, poor memory function, and a change in appetite. Students who are sleep deprived are also likely to have problems with mood, decision making, reaction time, creativity, motivation and performance.”
In accordance with this, Dr. Plax stated that sleep deprived students are often moody and irritable. Their ability to process information and memorize facts is impaired.
A lot of students are used to staying up late, thus shifting the internal “body clock.” Students get more and more used to staying up late then “binge sleep” on the weekends. This kind of irregular sleeping pattern takes a toll on the body.
“Extreme changes in the times you go to sleep and awaken can interfere with the body’s ability to regulate a timely release of melatonin,” McBride said. Melatonin is a hormone that assists our bodies in falling asleep.
According to Dr. Carskadon lack of sleep can also increase the stress of a normal school day.
”Kids not getting enough sleep are less likely to respond in a positive way to positive things in the environment, and more likely to respond in a negative way to negative things,” Carskadon said. This negative take is proven to increase depression and violence.
Sleep deprivation has not only short term but also long term effects. Dr. Van Cauter of University of Chicago told the Franklin Institute of Science Learning that “…[chronic sleep loss] could increase the severity of age-related ailments such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and memory loss.”
According to the New York Times, sleep deprivation has the ability to diminish the body’s intake of glucose, thus leading to diabetes.
Car accidents are also prevalent in sleep-deprived teens. According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep deprivation causes 100,000 accidents per year. Drivers under 25 cause more than half of those accidents.
According to Dr. Plax, sleep deprivation makes it difficult for the brain to complete complex tasks like driving. McBride agreed.
“Sleep provides the required fuel to support both our physical and mental health,” McBride said. “Sleep deprivation can have a negative impact on almost every aspect of a teenager’s functioning.”

How do we combat this pressing issue?

Living in a perpetual state of tiredness doesn’t have to be the case. There are many ways in which we can take steps towards mitigating these problems. A lot of these steps can be made in school, but also on an individual basis.
“Most studies indicate that teenagers perform best when they receive between nine to nine and a half hours of sleep,” said McBride. She suggests that putting down technology from time to time could help.
“Technology is a wonderful tool, but it’s brought 24 hours of light into a world that was intended to have periods of darkness,” she said. “The patterns of light and dark (day and night) play an important role in supporting our ability to sleep and wake.”
Our computers play more of a role in our sleeping patterns than we might think.
“Screens produce light which can disrupt our natural sleep cycle or circadian rhythm,” McBride said. “Melatonin is a natural hormone that assists us in falling asleep. We produce more melatonin when it is dark and less when we are exposed to light.”
Thus, going to bed with computers, cell phones and televisions actually works against our bodies, and our sleep support system.
Some teachers take steps to make sure that the learning environment in their classroom maximizes learning. CHS history teacher Joshua Meyers does an entire unit on how the brain processes information and what measures we can take to keep a stimulating learning environment.
“It is really five mini lessons on the five most significant things teachers and students can do to engage the brain: use of visuals, movement, chunking/processing, managing “states” and providing timely and specific feedback,” Meyers said.
Meyers thinks it is important for students to understand how their brains work. He makes an effort to keep the classroom energetic in order to keep brains stimulated and kids awake. In fact, according to Dr. Plax, the brain is directly affected by sleeping patterns.
For Plax, health issues from fatal to mild are inevitable and sometimes stress is out of our control. This is why it is important to make sure that we take advantage of the parts that are under our control.
“We want to make a difference over time,” Plax said. “Try and get 15 more minutes of sleep every night. Baby steps add up, thinking about small changes we can implement over time is more helpful than stressful.”