Sacrifice of Sleeping

It is nearly 1 a.m., and I am still awake, struggling with my worksheets, readings, and annotations. As this scene began to occur repetitively, I started reflecting on when sleeping became a scarcity for me. It now seems almost common for me to work on homework until midnight with an open can of energy drink or coffee beside me. If one day I happen to have more free time, the first thing that comes to mind is how to utilize my time efficiently to maximize my free time. Compared to schoolwork that represents quantitative grades in their Canvas gradebooks and extended socializing time that offers students mental happiness, sleeping seems like an item that could be given up easily. This mindset is shared among many teens, causing the trend of sleep deprivation to become an increasingly common thing among all high school students across the US– the act of drinking caffeine drinks during classes is normalized, and topics such as “How long did you sleep last night? become common in conversation. According to research conducted by Bommersbach and colleagues, who surveyed 120,950 high school students across the US, the percentage of students facing insufficient sleep rose from 68.9% to 76.8% from 2007 to 2023. More significantly, the percentage of students who received very short sleep, which is sleeping time below 5 hours, drastically increased from 15.8% to 23.0%. In other words, the data suggests that the majority of US high school students struggle with getting sufficient sleeping time. As teenagers grow up learning the importance of sleeping, it is, thus, significant to question: why do teenagers tend to sacrifice something that is vital to their well-being?

While traditional factors such as academic stress and extracurricular activities are often blamed as the cause of sleep deprivation among teens, research suggests that factors such as technology use, bed time procrastination, and biological factors equally play a role in the delayed sleeping time of teens. According to interviews I conducted at SIlverado, interestingly, Stevenson students generally receive enough sleep, ranging from 7.5 to 8 hours. Those who occasionally stayed up late attributed it to some less apparent reasons.

Beyond social causes, natural biological factors unique to adolescents equally impede teenagers from maximizing sleeping time. The onset of puberty is accompanied by a shift in hormone secretion, which naturally causes adolescents to adopt a later sleeping time. The impact of biological factors is confirmed by multiple Stevenson students. Sophomore Yolanda Li points out that she tends to have insomnia, while sophomore Erica You sources her delayed sleeping time to her excessive energy caused by puberty. Thus, apart from common factors like academic pressure and extracurricular activities, social and biological factors also prevent adolescents from getting sufficient sleeping time.

Even though sleeping deficiency seems to become normalized, the impact of lacking sleeping time shouldn’t be underestimated. As sleep fuels energy for teenagers, lack of sufficient sleeping time directly leads to decreased concentration in class. Sophomore Peggy Yang commented that she often found herself “struggling to focus in class, and having to force [herself] to stay awake” after nights of insufficient sleep. Thus, getting enough sleep becomes essential in order to enable students to have better academic performance. Although declining focus time in class is commonly associated with lack of sleep, sleep deprivation also exposes students to mental issues that are unexpected, and maybe even not often related to sleeping time. According to Johns Hopkins University, sleep deprivation leads to higher risks for depression, irritability, anxiety, and forgetfulness. More concerningly, teenagers’ judgment of these emotions is also impacted by sleep deprivation, so they tend to not notice its effects; a student who complains about how they have such a bad day with no energy and didn’t have the mood to interact with their friends may attribute the source of their emotion to a ‘hard school day’ instead of recognizing that inadequate sleep could also contribute to it. 

Ultimately, acknowledgment of the importance of sleep strongly contradicts the amount of sleeping time students receive– revealing students’ prioritization of activities that provide immediate rewards. Whether it is completing assignments, socializing with friends, or scrolling on social media, these tasks all can seem more valuable than going to bed. After all, in a world that prioritizes outcomes and efficiency, it is important to view sleeping not as a loss of time, but as a rest that sets the foundation for productive working.