Did you know that you spend ⅓ of your life sleeping?  Most of that ⅓ is during your infancy and your teen stage.  Infants are able to go to sleep very easily, but teenagers on the other hand, have a very hard time falling asleep, either due to external or biological reasons.  Their sleeping patterns vary wildly and almost none of them get the recommended amount of sleep.  

Phones are a teenagers' constant companion and what parents hate the most.  The endless dinging and constant attention teenagers give it just annoy parents.  This endless singing also carries on into the night, when everyone is supposed to be asleep.  Having your phone wake you up or keep you up is extremely annoying, but teenagers also have a need to stay entertained and are always waiting for that rush of serotonin that phones bring them.  The downside with this is that phones produce blue light.  Blue light throws your circadian rhythm, your internal clock, out of whack.  Before phones, the only light humans would get was from the sun during the day, so when humans created phones and started using them during the night, their circadian rhythm starts thinking it’s day and changes.  

Sleep doesn’t come easily for teenagers.  For example, me, being a teenager, I’m writing this at 12:00 in the morning.  Teenagers also need 9 ¼ hours of sleep a night.  Compare that with what an adult needs: 7-8 hours of sleep.  With a normal teenager’s lifestyle, they probably aren’t putting time aside to get 9 hours of sleep.  Another reason is that a teenager's circadian rhythm, is 2 hours behind what an adult’s is.  This means that if a teenager is waking up at 6 to go to school, that is comparable to an adult having to wake up at 4 to go to work.  Another thing that teenagers have against them is that their melatonin production time is at least 3 hours behind what adults have. A study conducted by BBC.CO shows that adults start producing melatonin at 10pm, while teenagers start producing it at 1am.  Combine following schedules from adults with functioning internal clocks with the lack of melatonin, teens don’t get their much needed sleep.  

Fast forward, I’m now working on this piece at 3:40PM.  Constantly yawning. Ready for a nap.  Royally not into it, but must push past this never-ending spiral of tiredness.   Going to sleep during the day won’t refresh you like sleeping at night, which is why naps don’t help very much for a lot of people.  

I’m done writing this.  I’m going to take a nap.  I’m sure I’ll hear about this later from my mom.