Sleep deprivation is an unfortunately popular trend among all people, but especially among teenagers in high school. While the recommended amount of sleep for teenagers to be getting each night in order to obtain optimal focus throughout the following day is from eight to ten hours, studies have found that only about fifteen percent of students are getting eight and a half hours per night (National Sleep Foundation, 2016). Some potential side effects of this sleep deprivation that so many teenagers face includes sleepiness, depressed mood or emotional changes, difficulty studying and retaining information, and decreased reaction time and coordination. Although some people may think these side effects are ones that are able to be overcome, prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to detrimental consequences such as a suppressed immune system, altered metabolic and hormonal functioning, weight gain, and REM Rebound. These effects are certainly within reach for me personally if I continue on with my current sleeping habits during my upcoming school year.

A prime example of proof that I myself am sleep deprived during the school year is found through the results of a sleep diary I kept for five days during this past school year for a psychology class I took. For four out of the five days I was running off of a significantly lower than the recommended eight and a half hours of sleep, and the one day I got enough sleep was a weekend. The following day, even after taking so much time to study, many times I barely remember anything from the night before, making my late night not even worth it in the end. After learning so much about the effects of sleep deprivation, I have come to realize that perhaps none of my late nights were ever worth it at all.

Also, as a result of a medication that I was required to take, I already had an unhealthy sleep schedule and side effects of fatigue on top of my lack of hours of sleep. I had been on a new medication called Prednisone for approximately three and a half months for treatment of my Crohn’s Disease. As written on the medication label of the steroid, side effects included tiredness and fatigue, along with insomnia, both of which I had been experiencing since my time on the medication and with increasing severity as I continued on it. These side effects are also backed up on government associated websites such as the Food and Drug Administration (Federal and Drug Administration, 2016). Crohn’s Disease itself is known for causing chronic fatigue because of the fact that the entire disease itself revolves around inflammation that causes malnutrition. This lack of crucial nutrition in the body leads to excessive fatigue that I have always experienced yet learned to maintain control of my taking vitamins and working with a nutritionist to make sure I am getting the necessary nutrients into my diet. However, with the introduction of the steroid, I had noticed a significant increase in my levels of fatigue that I had not been able to have much control over besides taking naps almost every day after school to try to keep myself awake and alert throughout the night while I did homework. Another obstacle that had come with this steroid in relation to my sleeping patterns is that throughout the night I had been waking up several times and then was not able to fall back asleep. This had caused me to lose up to a whole hour of sleep per night with the amount of time I had been awake each night combined, a very significant loss in addition to the general sleep deprivation I got from not going to sleep early enough.

All of that was only based on my own personal experience and own personal sleeping habits, but sleep deprivation affects almost all teenagers, especially during the school year. The summer is an opportunity for teens to catch up on their sleep and erase some of the sleep debt they have acquired throughout the school year, but as much as teenagers may sleep during the day in the summer, their nights are filled with friends and fun and not sleep. This creates an irregular circadian rhythm that takes time during their school year to regulate again, causing even more lack of sleep. Sleep deprivation is a vicious, unhealthy, and relatively unavoidable cycle that is almost impossible to overcome, especially for teenagers during the summer and even more during the school year when they’re forced to wake up at such early hours and stay up so late. Moral of the story? Sleep a lot during the summer and erase some of that sleep debt you’ve been carrying for so long!