Some students at school have been having trouble staying awake or paying attention due to the lack of sleep they received the prior night. Sleep deprivation can have psychological effects on you such as headaches, hallucinations, depression and many others.

Sleep deprivation can start a downward spiral when students get to their first class with only six hours of sleep and they can’t stay awake, the teacher tells them to keep their heads up and pay attention. The student continues to fall asleep so he gets sent to I.S.S.  He/she has now gotten into a lot of trouble simply because he/she didn’t get enough sleep the prior night.

Some students don’t have much control to when they can go to sleep because they have after school practice for a sport or even a job so they don’t get home until eight or ten in the evening. They eat something, take a shower and then they have to do homework. By the time they finish everything it will be around 12 to one in the morning depending on how much homework they had to do. Finally, they have to wake up at 7a.m to be able to catch the early school bus or else they won’t make it in time.

Other students have complete control of their sleep but still complain about not getting enough. They blame their performance on their sleep when really it traces back to their choices. They get home from school with only homework to do that they can finish in less than a couple of hours and then they have the rest of their evening. Instead of going to sleep at a good time, they stay up all night watching YouTube videos or on Twitter up until 3 a.m. They wake up really tired and they might not even go to school that day because they don’t feel like getting up.

If you are trying to get your sleeping routine back on track than you should really try to go to sleep a good amount of time before your usual time. Your body will be thankful and so will you the next morning. If you still feel tired, try taking a shower in the mornings to wake yourself up a little and so you will feel refreshed. If you didn’t have a chance to eat in the morning than take some kind of fruit to school to snack on and some water to stay hydrated so you can stay awake during your classes.

When you are trying to go to sleep next time, try to relax yourself as much as possible to increase the amount of deep sleep or REM sleep that you get.

If you aren’t doing some of these things to help yourself out than you are just complaining and blaming it on other people or circumstances. It will be a little tough at first but you just have to continue working at it until you get a comfortable sleeping schedule for yourself so that you can get a healthy number of hours. Your motivation will show through your grades and at your job if you have one. Remember, if you snooze than you don’t lose.