Sleep deprivation is the situation or condition of suffering from a lack of sleep. So why is sleep deprivation so common? I’ve asked fifty students if they get the required amount of sleep (which is 8 hours). Forty-two out of fifty said they were getting less than the recommended amount of sleep. It’s crazy to think that students are willing to harm their health for “homework, television, Netflix, YouTube, homework, studying, or video games” (Hilde).

Sleep deprivation might not be seen as bad, but it can cause some serious problems. Some of the short term problems include: lack of alertness, impaired memory, stress, drowsiness, and lack of energy. These are all short term problems that develop after a week of being sleep deprived. One week into school, and students such as myself are already starting to develop some problems. But school isn’t only a week long, its multiple months. The long term effects are paranoia, weight gain, depression, and high blood pressure. Weekends help to catch up on sleep, but do not fix the sleep schedule.

The human body has a rhythm that allows the brain to release melatonin at a certain time. This causes students to have a hard time to wake during the week because the body has to adjust every 5 days. Other than having a hard time getting out of bed because of disturbing the natural rhythm of sleep, it also stacks up like debt. This can be referred to as sleep debt. The less and less sleep someone gets as the days pass, the more exhausted and mentally damaged that person will be.

The only way to fix this is to simply get more sleep. Go to bed earlier. But this isn’t always possible, so the struggle will be ongoing. Goodluck!