Running on empty: Teens can’t find time to sleep
At Miramonte, students don’t ask their peers if they get enough sleep because they already know the answer.
“Sixty to seventy percent of American teens live with a borderline to severe sleep debt,” according to a study by Juliann Gary for the Child Mind Institute.
Balancing homework, studying, sports, hanging out with friends, family, and taking breaks can seem impossible. So the only way students can do it all – is by sleeping less.
Claire Casado, a Miramonte senior competing in wrestling and taking multiple AP classes, said every day is a vicious loop.
“I’m in a cycle of needing to get stuff done and then staying up late to do so, then me being tired the next day, and then being less productive and having more stuff to get done,” she said.
Being tired is just one of many side effects of losing sleep. It affects the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus and the endocrine system.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for decision-making, the hippocampus for memory and the endocrine system for the stress hormone, cortisol.
Allie Tarantino, one of Miramonte’s AP psychology teachers, said sleep also impacts people’s amygdala.
“Our amygdala becomes more reactive, making us more defensive to emotional outbursts,” said Tarantino. “Lack of sleep impacts our ability to successfully move information from our short-term into long-term; we are more prone to encoding failure.”
This applies to adults as well.
Everyone is more easily irritated by small things, and school or work performance decreases the more sleep someone loses.
Additionally, the lack of ability to transfer knowledge into long-term memory isn’t as noticeable as being tired, but it’s something to be aware of.
Casado said she’s increasingly seeing the effects of her sleep deprivation.
“I noticed that if I look tired, I tend to feel less confident in my stories and ideas,” she said.
Like Casado, in the short term, many students use coffee to feel less tired and catch up on sleep during the weekend.
However, using coffee to stop tiredness in the short term creates insomnia in the long term.
Reese Akel, a high school senior at Miramonte, stays up late but said being productive is more of a struggle for her because she doesn’t drink coffee.
“When I’m tired in class, it is a lot harder to focus and understand what I’m being taught and I also just have less energy to interact with people,” said Akel.
Akel has an internship at a biology lab and takes numerous AP classes, so getting sleep before 11 p.m. is rare.
“My goal is to eventually sleep before 11 p.m.,” she said, “so I don’t have to take as many naps.”
