Juliana Benitez a junior at Lake City said, “I don’t get much sleep at night, but I take ridiculously long naps when I get home. I usually feel much more productive and efficient on Mondays, when we have late start.” When school starts as early as it does, it’s hard to ensure we get enough sleep. Between balancing school, work, homework, social lives, and everything else that can be factored in, I’d say sleep seems to be at the bottom of most of our to do lists. This should almost be at the top of the list, though, due to the the known and proven fact that teens are supposed to get nine hours of sleep each night on average, unless you are one of the lucky people that only seems to need about eight-and-a-half hours.  However, according to pamf.org, “Yet surveys show that most teenagers get only six to seven hours.” This can create many issues in the lives of us adolescents.

As a teenager, there are many side-effects to not getting enough sleep:

• Having a hard time concentrating
• Not being able to get up on time in the morning
• Being moody or irritable
• Being forgetful
• Depression can also be caused by sleep deprivation over long periods of time
• Causing pimples and acne
• Slower reflexes and impulses, for example, while we are driving

These are all negative things that go along with not getting enough sleep. It also becomes harder to want to do your work whether at home or at school. Due to this, teens also are more likely to fall asleep during class when they should be paying attention and getting the required information for the class and to do the work.

Sleep is very important when it comes to doing well and achieving daily goals. Sleep is also very important when it comes to a person’s well-being and their health. Sleep is just as important as eating and even breathing. A downside to adolescents having more responsibility is that they go to bed later and get up earlier for school. However, teenagers who don’t typically go to bed before 11 o’clock aren’t able to get up earlier.

The Sleep Foundation also talks about how teens tend to have irregular sleep patterns throughout the week, staying up later on the weekends and messes with their sleep schedule during the week. When I asked Sky Smith, a junior at Lake City, what she had to say about the topic of how much sleep teens get a night and having to wake up early for school, she told me, “I believe we as teenagers should not go to school before 8:30am because sleep is very important as a young adult and is needed in our lives. I feel very tired most days waking up and I wake up at six in the morning. Change the schedule to 8:30.”

When it comes to personal health and the well-being of teenagers, sleep is crucial. Another thing that can come out of not getting enough sleep is a lower immune system. Having a bad immune system is what causes you to get sick more frequently than you normally would and, because of that, you will also be more tired and will miss school. There are no positive side effects to not getting a good night’s sleep, it seems.

Sleep is a necessity for us teens, even more so than the average adult or child. This is one thing that, no matter what teenager you talk to, he or she will tell you the same thing: they don’t ever seem to get enough sleep. Is it truly that we all just have horrible time management or is it that there really isn’t enough time in the busy lives of all of us to get enough sleep? Seeing how I have yet to find the answer and no one else seems to have the secret, I guess that should answer the question.