Catching the Z's
People all over the world have their own sleeping schedule that they have developed over time. Some go to sleep super early, others stay up late to party all night long. There are even those who don’t have a routine and go to sleep when they feel like it. I personally fall under the last group, sometimes going to bed at 9 p.m. only to fall asleep at 2 a.m. the next time.
But have you ever wondered how your sleeping schedule can affect how well you do on a test? I sure have. I don't want to be up all night doing work if the next day I'm going to get an F on the test since I didn't get enough sleep. Few people tend to see how delicate sleep is to the human body. Depending on how much or how little sleep you get, your performance can fluctuate.
So the question is, how many hours of sleep do you need in order to be able to perform at your best?
Wake Up It's Time To Test
Before jumping right into the experiment, there are important steps that must be meet before hand. All of it is part of a thing called the Scientific Method. I’m sure that you’ve heard of it by now. But if by the off-chance that you haven’t, it’s basically a list of procedures that help
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In order to do this, I first need to analyze my question (how many hours of sleep do you need in order to be able to perform at your best?) and based on my body of knowledge I will be able to write my hypothesis. I already knew that depending on how much you sleep you got, your mind will process at a different rate and that the average sleeping hours are between 7-9. However, I don’t know what the right amount of sleep is to meet your minds full potential. Using my personal experience that I always feel better after sleeping in, my hypothesis will be if a teenager gets more than the average amount of sleep, then their academic performance will
Students,especially students who drive to and from school are also at risk of more car crashes because of sleep deprivation. Additionally getting good sleep is important to maintaining good health,staying awake and alert, and working at peak performance. Although students can simply sleep earlier, many need that time to study and complete homework, with a later start time students can get their homework down and get a sufficient amount of sleep.”According to this research, the ideal amount of sleep for the average teenager falls between 8.5 and 9.5 hours a night, and teenagers who receive adequate sleep benefit from better physical and mental health, safety, and academic performance. It also revealed that puberty causes a “phase delay” in teenagers, which shifts the time that teenagers fall asleep back by two
Students need a good amount of sleep to be able to focus and get through the school day. Students ability to function during school is impacted by the quantity, regularity, and quality if their sleep (Wolfson 1). The quality of sleep is not only important for the students but it is also important for the teachers. The quality of sleep affects the way students and teachers act throughout the day. Daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality on school days in students and teachers may comprise school and work performance (De Souza 5). Since students and teachers stay up so late at night, they tend to be very tired during the day. It is important to get sleep but it is more important to get a good sleep. There is not really a point in sleeping or trying to get sleep when it is not a good sleep because no matter what students will be tired during the day. While the quality of sleep is important, so is the amount of sleep a student or teacher is getting on school nights.
As a result of a changing body and mind, adolescent sleep cycles have different needs than those of adults or younger children. As a matter of fact, Biologically, sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during adolescence -- meaning it is natural to not be able to fall asleep before 11:00 pm (“Teens”). In addition to biological change in sleep patterns, teenagers also tend to have eccentric sleep cycles. Obtaining less than healthy hours of sleep during the school week and then catching up on their sleep on the weekends. Most teenagers during the school week, do not get the suggested amount of sleep. In fact, according to a recent poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, 80% of teenagers do not get the suggested amount of sleep of 9 hours on school nights (“School Start”). With changing bodies and minds, along with an increased amount of schoolwork and extracurricular activities, teenagers need more sleep than children of a younger age. Experts believe that moving back the start time of school for high school students will improve grades, test scores, and the overall health and personality of many students.
It has been studied that teenagers need 8.5 to 9.25 hours of sleep every night.But two thirds of teenagers presumably in high school receive only or less than seven hours of sleep.This is probably due to the fact that forty three percent of high schools that are public start before 8:00
Assuming by the time teenagers start high school they will have around three hours of homework each night. Most high schoolers will not start their homework right as they get home, they will take a much-needed break and relax for a few hours, meaning they would not start their homework until 8:00PM. The homework is not very easy, forcing them to spend even longer on their homework and they are awake until midnight trying to figure out how to calculate the mass of Saturn.For instance, during the school week most students would be going to bed at 11:32 PM and wake up at 7:20 allowing them to get 7 hours and 48 minutes opposed to weekends where they would fall asleep at 12:56 and wake up at 10:36 getting 9 hours a 40 minutes of needed sleep (Wahlstrom). The amount of sleep they are getting on the weekdays is not sufficient to promote healthy growth. It is important for everyone to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night to be able to function properly. With a lack of sleep comes a risk of medical
Only about fifteen percent of teens obtain the preferred eight hours of sleep they need to function properly (Neuroscience for Kids, 2010). Sixty percent of teens say that they are “tired” and fifteen percent fall asleep in class (School and Sleep Times, 2011). This shows that high schoolers are not getting
Russell Foster has an open discussion of reasons why sleep is important to humans. He mentions that “huge sectors of society are sleep-deprived.” On average, teens need nine hours of sleep for a healthy brain performance. But, nowadays teens are only getting about
Teenagers are only getting 6-7 hours of sleep a night, while they need 10. Fifty-nine percent of middle school students and eighty-seven percent of high school students are getting less than the recommended 8 1/2 to 9 ½ hours of sleep a night. Schools that have a start time of 8:30 a.m. or later give students the opportunity to get the recommended amount of sleep on school nights.
Research shows that sleep is a necessity for everyone, especially teenagers. When starting school a little later, students can get at least 2-3 hours of extra sleep. With a 7 hour day at school, a couple of hours of homework, studying, and after school activities, there is not much time for sleep. With the extra sleep, when students get to school, they would be focused and ready to learn! “A common belief is that adolescents are tired, irritable and uncooperative because they choose to stay up too late or are difficult to wake in the morning because they are lazy, a study noted. Educators tend to think that adolescents learn best in the morning and if they simply went to sleep earlier, it would improve their concentration” (Schaffhauser 2). For all of these reasons, it is very important for teens should sleep.
“It’s 6:00 a.m., the alarm blares loudly in my ear, I struggle to open my eyes and drag myself out of bed, I finally wake up, get ready, arrive at school, and before I know it, I am asleep in first period.” “Two out of three U.S. high school students sleep less than 8 hours on school nights (Yeager).” According to Dr. Robert, an associate professor of internal medicine in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School teens need at least nine hours of sleep. Getting a sufficient amount of sleep is crucial to be healthy and to function properly (Holohan). When teenagers reach a certain age, their bodies sleep cycles start to shift. Teenagers naturally want to fall asleep later and wake up later because of their bodies “inner clocks (Yeager).” Schools should start later in the morning because it can improve student’s academic performance, reduce teen car crash rates, and helps prevent emotional disorders.
Students continue to work late into the night to meet the pressing homework deadlines, sacrificing much needed sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation, teens need 8.5 to 9.25 hours
According to clinical psychologist Reut Gruber, Short or poor sleep is a significant risk factor for poor academic performance that is frequently ignored.” In other words if students came to school with enough sleep, then they are able to concentrate more. They listen to teachers lecture carefully rather than taking nap during class. They will have more tendency to participate in class discussions and activities. This led to better grades and decreases the failure
“Students who described themselves as struggling or failing school (C's, D's/F's) reported that on school nights they obtain about 25 min less sleep and go to bed an average of 40 min later than A and B students, ps < .001. In addition, students with worse grades reported greater weekend delays of sleep schedule than did those with better grades.” (Wolfson, Carskadon, pg.1). Because some students go to bed later, it results in them having worse grades. Whereas students who go to bed earlier tend to have A’s or
Sufficient sleep is a biological necessity for the normal functioning of humans, it allows the body to rest and to replenish itself so that it is able to serve its function of living. In addition, mental and physical health depend on the amount of sleep we get. Most adults and students value work and college much more than sleep, this is due to the academic, career, and materialistic demands. Researchers have noted a positive correlation between lack of sleep and decreased physical health, mental health, and academic performance. Sleep consists of two cycles: non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM), which are sleep patterns that alternate throughout the night. Firstly, sleep begins with non-REM sleep lasting about 90 minutes followed by REM sleep lasting 10-30 minutes, then the cycle repeats itself. REM sleep is the most important phase of sleep because the body is internally awake, with waking-like brain activity, yet asleep and externally calm. Thus, an uninterrupted REM phase of sleep is necessary for integrating previously learned material, and giving the individual a feeling of being well rested and refreshed. Many individuals will put sleep off so that more work hours, and school work can be fit into the day in order to get a better outcome such as job promotions or better academic grades, but I believe that sleep deprived people show a low performance in daily tasks due to suffering from mental, and physical health disorders.
It is estimated that only 15 percent actually get these amounts (Kids Suffer from Sleep Deprivation). This is particularly important for students who wish to do well in school. Dr. Carl Hunt, the director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, is spearheading a sleep campaign. Her philosophy is, “Sleep well, do well.” This is something that shouldn’t be taken to lightly. Sleep problems effect about 70 million Americans of all ages. Teens often have problems with daytime sleepiness. The old idea of early to bed, early to rise isn’t necessarily the best answer. Society is simply asking to much of teens (Sleep experts to teens). A combination of school, work, study and leisure, leaves very little time left for sleep. Being deprived of sleep definitely has an effect on how well students do in school and may be putting their health at risk. College students who stay up all night to study for a test or write a big paper that’s due often have no choice because of the pressures to do well and succeed, but at what price do they pay?