Photo by Daemyn Broxterman
After a long day at Hastings High School (HHS), when the last-period bell rings, many students start to show signs of tiredness. More than 28% of high school students fall asleep in class at least once a week. School counselor Jeff Bittfield and school psychologist Kimberly Benorden explain how sleep deprivation hurts students’ grades and overall school life.
“With technology nowadays, most high school students are getting less amount of sleep. Having less amounts of sleep affects how your brain processes information, which may cause careless mistakes and impaired thinking,” said Benorden.
Most teenagers need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night to support mental and physical health. A sleep cycle is a repeating pattern of brain activity and body changes that occur while you rest. A student should get around 5 to 6 full cycles per night. Some students use the weekend to catch up on missed sleep. What most students do not realize is that this shifts your body’s clock, leaving you unfocused on Monday.
“Students will take advantage of ‘no school days’ and will want to stay up late on nights there is no school the next morning. This disrupts the sleep cycle for when students want to go to sleep on a Sunday night to get ready for school the next day. Once this occurs, students are not their optimal selves; they are more tired, unable to process information given in school, and it can affect overall mood,” said Benorden.
Sleep affects more than just focus, so students who struggle with their sleep schedules may need help managing the impact and stress of having an unbalanced sleep schedule. Bittfield has offered to help students who are struggling with sleep create a schedule that fits their needs. Bittfield can help students build a schedule so that they do not have to quit their jobs, sports, or activities.
“Are there ways we can stay better organized? Are there ways we can manage our time a little wiser, and schedule that sleep? If your bedtime is 10 o’clock and you just have a normal school day, that is something we can control. On the other hand, there are some things we cannot control. But on those days where we can control, we want to stick to 10 o’clock,” said Bittfield.
Sophomore Corbin Donner is a high school student at HHS who is involved in Cross Country and is very active in the high school community. On a regular school day, he gets around six and a half hours of sleep, yet he does not usually find himself struggling to stay awake in class.
“My lack of sleep has almost too little to no effect on how I perform, unless I had an eventful day the previous day and didn’t get much sleep that night. When I hardly get enough sleep the previous night, it makes it a bit hard to focus and concentrate on conversations around me,” said Donner.
When students do not get enough sleep, the effects are not always noticeable right away. Sleep deprivation can look a lot like Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or other focusing disorders. They have two similar factors, including extreme mood swings and attention challenges.
“It’s one of the questions I ask first when the kid says, ‘Hey, man, I think I might have ADHD’. Okay, well, let’s talk about your sleep schedule because it could be ADHD, or it could just be sleep,” said Bittfield
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