Disasters of Sleep Deprivation
Students who attend Choate and other academically rigorous school sacrifice sleep in an effort to do as many things as they can in one day. Countless responsibilities are placed on students, including school work, social life, athletics, and extracurriculars. With all their responsibilities, it is not surprising that adolescents need to sacrifice sleep to complete their tasks. Lack of sleep is unhealthy for students, yet it has become socially acceptable because of the competition among teenagers to strive to do their best.
Cutting out significant hours of sleep is unhealthy because teenagers' bodies cannot fully recuperate with the little sleep they get. In general, 8 hours of sleep is necessary to get enough REM sleep and regenerate neural pathways from the days work. Some studies have even verified that students need up to 9.5 hours to fully recover from the day's work. Choate students work especially hard and should be getting plenty of sleep to refresh themselves. To replace the lost hours of sleep, students turn to methods such as drinking generous amounts of caffeine and sugar-filled energy drinks. Many teens consume stimulating drinks not only during the day, but also late at night to stay awake to finish homework for the next day. Accordingly, students sleep cycles are negatively affected and their bodies become dependent on stimulants for regular energy levels.
While low sleep levels have been proven to be detrimental for teenagers health, they have become the norm for students. In today's society, teenagers are constantly competing with grades, schools, and even jobs. Therefore, it has been acceptable for students to stay up later and get more done. If students went to bed at a decent hour, they would not have enough time to finish all of their work, and their success at school would be impaired. The standard of little sleep affects others ages as well; now college students and adults will sacrifice sleep to finish their work. If the trend of little sleep continues, then the health of our future generations could be at great risk.
I like how you used facts and numbers to convince and inform the reader about your topic. This is also a really relatable topic, so it was interesting for me to read.
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