Sleep Deprivation ; Depression
“I can’t remember what it’s like not to be tired”-Unknown. Waking up in the morning at 6am to catch the bus at 6:30am to go the school is how teenagers starts their day usually. After that, spend about eight hours in school before getting the chance to go home.
Afterward, there are likely chores to be done, like cleaning your home, and then laundry, having to help cook. By the time all the chores are wrapped up it is likely to be 5pm. Now it’s about evening time, this is a fantastic time to be outside and exercising. Beside if you want to stay healthy you will have to have at least one hour of physical activities. You come into the house around 6pm to 6:30pm all sweating from outside or your workout at the gym.
Time to wash up and have dinner, so that will be 7pm when you are ready to eat, and dinner with your family will end at say 7:45pm. Finally, there is some peace and quiet to do your homework, predictively you will complete everything at 10pm. This is the standard schedule, not including socializing yet, that also take up time in our days. Imagine having a 2 hours practice for some type of extracurricular activities and then a part time job just to pay for your education. Statistics show that the relationship between busy schedules, sleep deprivation, and depression in teens are connected. With so many things to worry about in life as a soon to be adult, you barely have any time to sleep, and with that you will increase the risk of depression.
Based on the SLEEP 2010 studies, there are more than half of a senior class who have sleep deprivation. Not to mention, there are 32% of the students population with some sort of symptom showing depression. Furthermore, there is an additional 30% that have symptoms showing a very strong indicator ofdepression. By the age of 18, it is estimated that 11% of teenages all over the world have already experienced depressive disorder. Although the percentage does not seem to have much of an impact, the actual number of teens is more than you could imagine.
It is predicted that by the year 2050, there will be an estimate of 26.5 million teens with sleep deprivation. As you can see, the percentage of sleep deprivation and depression in teens are on the rise and will continue to rise, proving that teens have too overwhelming schedules due to school, life out of school, and society needs to stop putting more value on those who do more. Starting off, school days should be reduced; students spend most of their days in school and then come home to more school work. In addition, “The amount of hours you need in school is the same amount you need outside of school to study”-Unknown.
Meaning after 8 long hours of school, it is best that we spend that same amount of hours outside of school to study, possibly a little less but at least have spent 3 hours studying. Adding on to our already busy schedule are clubs and extracurricular activities that takes up more time outsideand after school. Don’t get me wrong, getting involved in school is awesome, but it can tire students out. On top of that, some juniors and seniors have part time jobs, taking up more of their time to sleep. Furthermore, students who have sleep deprivation because of school and activities, are 3 times more likely to develop depression than those who get enough sleep.
Outside of school and part time jobs, there are chores at home, and doing those chores takes up time too. Laundry takes up about 1 hour to do- putting your clothes in, getting the detergent, transferring clothes to dry and then folding them. Cleaning up the room may also take up at least 30 minutes. In parts, this all seem like nothing, but it adds quite a lot when time is precious. This is all not including spending time with family, friends, and socializing on social media. Although we do it in between our schedule, when adding up the hours it is quite time consuming.
We can’t help it though it is in our nature to value our family and friends; therefore we fit them in at the end of a hustling day. Adding all of this together- the school work and activities, part-time job, chores, and hanging with friends is about 19 hours or so. We have 24 hours in a day, with 19 hours awake, we have 5 hours of sleep. That is not enough because, based on data teenagers should have 8.75 to 9.
5 hours of sleep. As a matter fact even book Dead on Their Feet “It’s no wonder kids complain of being tired. They are!”-Esherick Society also takes a part in the situation of teen’s sleep deprivation. Now having school and life outside of school is hard enough, but society expects more. Colleges are taking the best of the best- meaning you should be an advanced student, taking all AP classes, get involved in sports and clubs at school. Society tends to put more value on the ones who do more, when really we should all matter the same.
Unfortunately, we listen to society more than we should; therefore students are overdoing and overworking from what they can do, and actually have time to do. With such busy schedule, not many get enough sleep to have a stable mood, because yes, sleep relates to our mood. Most will start of having bad days, then days turning into months, then eventually we get too tired to do anything. With this students starts to see nothing good in life, their visions of the world goes pessimistic, and so they become depressed. Another way they could be depressed is that they are too stressed from school, leading to having an anxiety disorder.
Anxiety is not the same as depression, but it can be a factor that leads to depression. With overfilling schedules, teenagers are getting less and less sleep, causing depression. Thus, it is best if the expectations for students in school participation be drop. Parents should cut some slacks for their children; they cannot always be the perfect child, and society should stop judging students’ value based on how much they can do and how much they are involved in.”Teens have it easy” is a false statement, and so is “Depression is nothing, it’ll be fine”. “Sleep at night, not in my class” says teachers, not knowing the schedule students may have.
It is not as easy as it sounds. I’m sure if teenagers could sleep at night they would, but their schedules would not allow them to.
