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THE BLUE & GOLD

Opinion | Sleep is more important than you might think

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As the years of high school progress, students become more involved in extracurricular activities and classes become more challenging. Some students may have their schedules completely full from Monday through Friday. Some live far away from home, spending at least two hours on round trip transportation. Even though we want to be more involved with school activities, we are restricted by time and homework. I will help you decide whether to complete your homework during the crack of dawn or in the evening.
Every student has a different schedule, there is always a time gap for completing homework, regardless of having various classes and extracurricular activities However, that is not to say it will be easy. As a junior, I have compiled some tips for completing homework that allows you to attend extracurricular activities and and sleep at least six hours a night. According to a blog from Scientific American, staying up late at night and sleeping late into the morning results in a shift of our circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is our body clock, a cycle which tells our body when to sleep, rise, and eat. When this rhythm is disrupted, it leads to sleep disorders such as insomnia. The process of disrupting the circadian rhythm is contagious in our sleeping cycle. Once the cycle is disrupted, it would be challenging to restore our circadian rhythm.
In addition to disrupting our circadian rhythm by sleeping late, our mental health is also affected. According to a news article from PBS Newshour, sleep loss due to early morning school schedules can increase a teen’s risk toward obesity, mood disorders, and accidents. As teenagers, most are influenced to wake up early by our parents. Our job is to work around obstacles such as a fixed school schedule. If school starts early, then we sleep early so then we can rise early. Homework, the nemesis of all students is also a great obstacle we must tackle daily. Based on an article from the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, human performance is greatly impacted from when and how long we sleep. When we enter the circadian cycle of sleep, our protein levels begin to recharge – by not sleeping at the time when the protein recharges, the cycle will get disrupted and so will the amount of the protein in our system be affected.
Sleep is far more important than completing homework. In order fulfill both categories of sleep and completing work, manage your time correctly. Having sufficient amount of sleep is the key to success.

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