My Response to the Sleep Deprivation Article

While reading this well informed article “Sleep Deprivation may be Undermining Teen Health,” I began to think, “Yes! Somebody else understands where I am coming from.” From the outrageous number of car crashes each year all the way to poorer grades in school, something has to be done. I believe that doing poorly in school is the consequence of sleep deprivation that is most problematic. I say this because in reality, those four short years of high school determines any adolescent’s future, and some dreams are being swept right from under students’ feet because there’s no way they can focus that early in the morning. Ronald E. Dahl, MD, a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh mentions that sleep deprivation not only causes poor grades, it also causes poor judgement. Dahl mentions, “it's likely that sleep deprivation and problems controlling impulses and emotions exacerbate one another, leading to a "negative spiral" of fatigue and sleepiness, labile emotions, poor decision-making and risky behavior” (Carpenter, 2001 p. 46) Now, not only adolescents getting poor grades, but they are acting out and making poor decisions most likely under peer pressure and/or poor judgement.

If you really break down the school districts, it’s almost as if they want the students to fail. Any answer to not getting enough sleep is easy: go to sleep earlier. However, that isn’t too easy as a high school junior or senior who is heavily active in extracurricular activities and has to go home with two hours worth of homework from each of their classes, plus additional college entrance work (SAT and ACT practice, college applications, etc.). Most adolescents can handle that, and most do graduate with honors, but speaking for myself, I did better in school during the winter when we had two-hour delays. In short, it’s best for students, parents, and school staff to be aware of this issue because it is very unlikely that school districts in our town will be able to have later start times. So as a family unit, it’s good to know what you can do to help get sleep deprivation under control.


Works Cited

Carpenter, S. (2001, October). Sleep Deprivation may be Undermining Teen Health. American Psychological Association. Retrieved January 31, 2013, from
http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct01/sleepteen.aspx.