Sleep Deprivation Affecting Today's Society

Adolescents today face a widespread chronic health problem: sleep deprivation. Research shows that getting enough sleep is a biological necessity. Sleep is essential for a person’s health and wellbeing, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Teens are among those least likely to get enough sleep; while they need on average 9 1/4 hours of sleep per night for optimal performance and health and brain development, teens average fewer than 7 hours per school night, and most report feeling tired during the day (Nationwide Childrens, 2003). The root of the problem is early school start times.

Sleep deprivation throughout the teen years is a very serious problem, spending most of the day at school, teens who are sleep deprived have an impaired ability to stay alert, pay attention, solve problems, handle stress and retain information. Young

Sleep loss can take a devastating toll on the mind and body at any stage of life from early childhood to older adulthood. But, for teenagers, who are at a critical stage of development, skipping out on sleep can be particularly dangerous. One standout finding is that a lack of sleep affects the body the same way that drinking alcohol does. And like alcohol an insufficient amount of sleep can lead to impairments of mood, affect regulation, attention, memory, behavior control, executive function, and quality of life. In a study of nearly 28,000 suburban high school students, published earlier this year in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, found that each hour of lost sleep is associated with a 38 percent risk of feeling sad or hopeless and a 58 percent increase in suicide attempts. As well teens who sleep an average of six hours per night are also three times more likely to suffer from depression, a 2010 study found. Thus, the correlation between sleep deprivation and depression go hand in hand among teenagers. Also, losing sleep can also have a long-term negative effect on a teens physical health with poor sleep quality being linked to diabetes and obesity risk for teens. Sleep correlates with the well-being of teens, but it also closely relates with academic

Serious health issues like depression could be caused if a teen doesn’t get enough sleep, but with homework to do, essays to write, and exams to study for, it is hard to get a good night’s rest. A later starting time for school could significantly help. O’Neill says, “Studies show that tired teens have an increased risk of depression, anxiety, obesity, and illness,” (O’Neill 20). From this quote, it is evident that many health conditions could arise from not getting enough sleep. However, not only mental problems can develop.

Most teenagers think that it is cool staying up late with friends, but the lack of sleep is slowly killing you with the toxins of society. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention related lack of sleep to health risks such as being overweight,

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

Gail Gross, talks about the why teens need their sleep, “[w]hen teens do not get enough sleep, the problems can be very serious and affect almost every aspect of their lives. They lose the ability to focus and stay on task, they experience fatigue, mental lapses, and symptoms of ADHD, including hyperactivity and attention deficit. When your teen is stressed through the loss of sleep, theamygdala enlarges, making him or her more emotional in decision-making, while the hippocampus narrows where learning and memory live. As a result, not sleeping long enough can affect not only decision-making ability, but also creativity.” Teen lose so much focus when they don’t have their sleep. We want to blame it on the teen themself, but it is also the school system’s fault. Teenages have to get up so early just to make it to school on time. During the first couple of period, they are exhausted. Teen can’t concentrate. They don’t remember things. Just starting school later would fix this problem right

To begin with, lack of sleep causes many issues with a teenager’s daily life. Teens are constantly tired out by their busy lives. Mounds of homework and extracurricular activities mean that teens have a huge amount of responsibilities,

Sleep deprivation has a lot of dangers associated with it. It can cause hypertension and, because of something commonly called Sleep Debt, it sometimes causes dangerous driving conditions. Sleep debt is the amount of sleep a person has lost over time, and it must be paid back just like a money loan would need to be (Dement & Vaughan, p. 501). Christopher Dement explains (1999), “Regardless of how rapidly it [sleep debt] can be paid back, the important thing is that the size of the sleep debt and its dengerous effects are definitely directly related to the amount of lost sleep” (p. 501). Risks for hypertension have also been linked to sleep deprivation because it can increase a person’s stress level. A study done by Dr. Susan Redline and published in the Science Journal Circulation on August 19, 2008 reports that:

Sleep Foundation, only 15% of teen gets the sleep needed, the rest 85% of teens are sleep deprived. The biggest cause that's keeping teens away from their sleep is school. School is starting too early for a teen to be able to function, waking them up far before they got their daily sleep needed. This problem originated back in the 1970’s, when people shift school hour to an earlier hour for various reasons. As a result teens are waking up earlier than they should be, going against their circadian rhythm. On top of teen’s early wake time, teens are over scheduling, accumulating hours and hours of sleep debt. These sleep deprived teens tend to be more moody, affecting the people around them. ​Teens across the world are sleep deprived because of school start time, and their multiple involvement in activities. Teens tend to overwork on, school, activity, work, and many more, causing them issues academically and physically. People can solve this problem by letting others know about this problem.

With all of these things weighing heavy on the teenager’s shoulders, it can cause him/her lack of sleep. According to Bruni’s article, he also believes teens today are receiving an inadequate amount of sleep because of the rising demand of working harder, having higher expectations, and technology. In the end, lack of sleep for teens may be thought of as beneficial, but it is becoming detrimental for teens to make habit of. Add something about the mental part because you talked about suicide and

Teenagers are at an important stage of their growth and development because of this, they need more sleep than old people. The normal teen needs about 9-10 hours of sleep each night to feel alert and well rested. There are many thing that keep teenagers from getting enough sleep. Teens are so full of potential, so full of life,

First off, having a bad sleep schedule can affect your health. According to the table in Source #1, teens should get at least 9-10 hours a day in order to function correctly. If you lose sleep or choose that sleep isn’t needed, you end up with a sleep debt. Sleep debt is when you end up losing sleep and it just adds up. Your sleep patterns can differentiate meaning that your

Some research claims that teenagers are set to a different sleep schedule than that of an adult or a young child. Teenagers usually are not able to fall asleep until after 11PM, and typically cannot wake up before 8AM, when their bodies finally stop producing melatonin. Research also shows that if their classes are at any time before 8, then they end up not even showing up, which gives in to failure and raises the drop-out rates. But of course nobody performs well when they are sleep deprived. With that being said, it is proven that sleep deprivation lead to obesity and learning disabilities like attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

According to the National Sleep Foundation, about 20% of Americans report that they get less than 6 hours of sleep on average, and the number of Americans that report that they get 8 hours of more has decreased. (http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/toll-of-sleep-loss-in-america#1 ) In our society it seems that we just have so many other important things to worry about besides getting a good night’s rest. Long work shifts, social media, cable, caffeine, sleep disorders and alcohol seem to be some of culprits that cause sleep deprivation. Short term, sleep deprivation is linked to poor work performance, driving accidents, relationship issues, and mood problems like anger and depression. (http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/toll-of-sleep-loss-in-america#1)