Sleep. We all need it, and we all know that. But do we really know what it does to our minds and bodies if we don’t get enough of it?

High school students aren’t getting enough sleep, we all know that. But do we do anything about it? No, we just ignore it and hope it goes away, or magically gets resolved. Around 75% of teenagers across the globe suffer from sleep deprivation, but the only way it can be resolved is if we actually do something about this, and again we all know that. It seems like we know how to solve sleep deprivation in the bag. So why don’t we actually open that bag and use the knowledge that we have?

Sleep is where all the magic happens. Where our brain develops, our body grows, heals and repairs itself, cleans out your digestive system and prepares you for the next day. Sleep is like self-pampering without much physical effort. So where are we going wrong in teens?

Many people will say that it’s because teens are in front of their screens too much and are on it at night. And yes, they are, however a recent study by scientists at Oxford University showed that technology actually plays little role on our ability to get an efficient amount of sleep.

I think the answer is actually in school. School times to be more specific. Schools all around Victoria vary slightly in length, however they all are somewhere between starting at 8.30am and ending at 3.30pm. Personally as a high school student, I find that having school start at 8.30am to too early. And I have often experienced being tired throughout the day countless times. If schools started half an hour later or even an hour later than it does, students, teachers and parents would see improvements on test scores and in general class participation.

 “I often experience tiredness during the day, and I can’t concentrate properly in class.”, anonymous high school student  

If we don’t get enough sleep, we experience being tired throughout the whole day, we lack in attention span, our reaction time becomes slower which can be very dangerous, it affects your ability to think and remember things and you can get stressed about things very easily. Now, I want to talk about that one for a second. Stress. Homework and schoolwork plus exams and tests stress out students a lot, and I mean a lot. Trying to balance studying and homework with family and other out of school activities can be very stressful; especially during the exam period. If schools could start later than students won’t have to be so worried about having to do some study at night because they know that school starts later, and they can still get enough sleep to be prepared for the next day.

What am I trying to say? You all need a lot more sleep than you think, and make sure you get it. Do you really want to get insomnia? Or have your body not be able to look after itself and get really sick? if you don’t get enough sleep this is what is going to happen whether you like it or not.