How Much Sleep Do You Need?
Still not enough to sleep well.
Teens need about 8 ½ – 9 hours of sleep each night. Yet, only about 15% of them will get the recommended amount. Many teens cannot fall asleep before 11 p.m. and have irregular sleeping cycles, such as going to bed late and waking up late on the weekends. Not getting enough sleep as well as not maintaining a rhythm of when to go to sleep can have effects on teens worse than an embarrassing nap in class. Also, insomnia, sleep apnea, and narcolepsy are fairly common treatable disorders among teens that present another challenge when it comes to getting rest. Overall, a lack of sleep can be harmful to a teen’s complexion, overall health, and can even contribute to obesity.
However, in order to prevent these results a correct amount of sleep on a daily basis must be upheld. In MHS this means going to bed anywhere from 9 to about 10 (depending on how far away from school you are and how long it takes to get ready in the morning) so that a student could sleep enough and get to school on time. This is a major obstacle in getting enough sleep as a teen since most teens cannot fall asleep until 11 o’clock. If it takes 30 minutes to get ready, 10 minutes to get to school, and you must be there by 7:40-7:45, an adolescent must be in bed by 10 p.m., an hour earlier than most teens can even fall asleep. But pushing back the time school starts would result in afterschool activities being pushed back, so students would be getting home even later. Although we may never see later times in MHS, change has begun in dozens of districts so for now we’ll just have to learn to sleep after school.
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