Does this sound like you?
· Do you always feel drowsy and unenergetic all day long?
· Do you always tell yourself to sleep early but fail to do so?
· After experiencing the vicious cycle, do you just choose to rinse and repeat?
I can’t sleep early; I have some much school work to do! I need to finish studying, I have homework to do, I have tuition that ends at 10pm… these are some reasons we often give ourselves to explain why we are up late. Research suggests that studying late into the night does not work. We need sleep to reinforce learning and memory. Students who sleep less suffer academically, they lose the ability to concentrate, think abstractly and solve problems. One study surveyed 3,000 high school students and found that those with higher grades reported sleeping more, going to bed earlier on school nights and sleeping in less on weekends than students who had lower grades. As teenagers, we NEED sleep to study and play hard - having a healthy body, a healthy mind, and a healthy soul is essential for each and everyone of us.
Sleep research suggests that teenagers like us need around 9 hours of sleep every night. If school starts at 8am, we need to be up around 6:30pm, placing the ideal bedtime around 9:30pm. However, most of us are still awake at 11pm to 1am and only get about 6.5 to 7.5 hours sleep per night. That is about 1.5 – 2.5 hours of sleep deprivation a day!
Over the course of the next week, look at your sleeping patterns as the first step towards improving your sleep quality.
This is an example of how you can use the templates above to monitor your sleep routine. As you can see, if you always go to bed at 12 or 1 am, your total weekly sleep deprivation is 10 hours or more.
Even though you may try to catch up on some sleep at other times, it is difficult to reduce sleep deprivation significantly. Dr Meredith Broderick, a neurologist, said that we can catch up on sleep in the short-term, but it isn’t always possible to recover completely in the long term. Therefore, the best solution is to get the right amount of sleep every night.
Looking at the questions in the table, you may notice two similar questions, “When do I go to bed,” and “When do I sleep?”. Going to bed and sleeping may seem similar, but are different. What did you do before going to sleep yesterday. Did you get into bed with your device?
Using smartphones and computers before sleeping, will not only make you “forget” to sleep but also make it harder to fall asleep. The main reason is that night-time blue light exposure reduces the production of a hormone called Melatonin, which we need to relax and get deep sleep. Without Melatonin, your brain may be misled to thinking it’s still daytime.
Here are some methods that can help you to reduce the exposure to blue-light:
● Stay away from electronic devices 1 hour before sleeping
● Install an app that blocks blue light on your electronic devices
● Dim down the light
● Do things that can relax you such as reading books or doing yoga
● Do not get into bed with a device in your hand.
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