Teenagers all around the world never get a fulfilling amount of sleep during the night, does this include you?  

In a study, it shows that only 15% of teenagers ranging from ages 13-18 get the recommended amount of sleep, which is eight and a half – nine hours per night.

Kayla Palmer, 10th grader here at Franklin High school (FHS), reveals that she only gets about seven and a half hours on school nights. She has come to this conclusion by going to bed at approximately 10:30 p.m. and waking up at 6 a.m. Palmer says that in the morning she feels tired, drowsy, and worn out due to getting little sleep.

As a result of poor amounts of sleep most teenagers are sleep deprived when they come to school and the effects take a toll on their body. Lack of sleep changes your mood, cognitive ability, academic performance, and most dangerous of all, ability to drive.

However on a normal day, Palmer would go to bed around 12:00 am and wake up at 9:00 am. With these times Palmer gets the recommended and average amount of sleep a teen needs to be fully functioning…nine hours.

The reasons for Palmer’s sleepiness are extra curricular activities, early school start times, and large amounts of homework. Due to these pressures on a teenager, it makes sleeping harder when you have the stress from other activities on your mind.

Palmer says that the most troublesome pressure at night has to be homework: “They give us so much homework that it makes it hard to sleep when you are worried about getting everything done.”. Homework causes a large amount of stress and is also time consuming for such a young mind.

The best way to avoid sleepiness in school is to maintain a normal sleeping schedule, take afternoon naps when needed, and avoid substances such as caffeine, smoking, alcohol, and drugs.

Overall, added pressures such as school work and activities cause sleep to be a minor role in a teens life.