Desks are Pillows

Slumbering students. Photo by Colton Sierra '14. Copyright Red Cloud Indian School.

Desks are Pillows

By Colton Sierra ‘14

Heads laid on desks. Notebooks nonexistent. Dreams. That is all that is expected when only 12% of the students here at Red Cloud get the eight or more hours of sleep needed to function properly.

You may ask yourself, “Why do I need that much sleep? I feel like I have a lot of energy when sometimes I only get four hours of sleep. So what’s the big deal?” Well, what could have happened is that you woke up in your lightest cycle of sleep. You can see learn about sleep cycles here.

I consulted this website about how much sleep a person younger than 18 must get, and what they say is about 8 ½ to 10 hours of sleep are needed. One way to know if you’re not getting enough sleep is how you act throughout the day.

I asked Michael Sunderland what his thought were about the importance of sleep, and this was his reply: “You should train yourself to get eight hours of sleep. It is vital for academics and overall well being.”

A lot of students that I talked to about sleeping schedules either barely got enough sleep (66.7% of students got 5-7 hours) or barely got any sleep at all (21.3% of students got 4 hours or less.) The dangers of sleep deprivation include lack of motivation, moodiness, frequent colds, and concentration problems.

“This week I haven’t gotten a good amount of sleep, and now I feel unorganized,” said Myranda Pourier ‘15. Although I haven’t seen her head down in the Psychology class that we share together,  in the “Twittersphere” in this past week she seemed to be in a distant relationship with her buddy, the Sandman.

I haven’t had a good couple of weeks of sleep either, so I understand the effects of sleep deprivation. These past two weeks my productivity has caused my grades to sink lower than the Titanic.

I know all of my friends love to get sleep, and they love to sleep in on weekends. You know the good, refreshed feeling of getting an excessive amount of sleep. Everyone loves sleep. So why not love sleep everyday? Why not treat your body and mind with a full 8 or 9 or 10 hours? I understand that in this day and age with advances in technology and the effects of a heavy workload and schedule that sleep is sometimes the last thing we think about. Sometimes it is hard to catch up with sleep, and you feel like your life is falling apart by each hour of sleep you miss. But if you allow yourself just one or two more hours each night, you can increase your chances toward a more healthy life.