With finals coming up, students find themselves planning. When will I study for this test? Should I make a study guide or flash cards? The testing season prompts students to take a responsible look at life. However, when schedules are put together, one vital part seems to be constantly ignored; when am I going to get some sleep?

It’s a problem which has seemed to plague students for years. The combination of school work, athletics, and other activities often works to keep students constantly busy. For many, it’s much easier (and seemingly more important) to prioritize the work you need to do over things which actually work to improve one’s ability to complete tasks successfully.

The statistics collected from students at Hinsdale Central work to emphasize the sleep problem which is currently plaguing the country. The top three recorded times that students go to sleep during the school year fall between the hours of eleven and midnight; hours which can threaten one’s well-being and health if repeated enough. Many students contribute their reasons for going to bed so late at night as result of the excessive amounts of school work which is assigned to them.

“The teachers think that it is okay to assign 2+ hours of homework a night. Multiply that by 5 other classes and theres goes any chance of getting adequate sleep needed for a student of our age,” a responder to the survey explained. Other students explained that practices for athletics and involvement in clubs and other activities works to eat up their time.

In a shocking and unfortunate statistic recorded, 88% of Hinsdale Central students responded that they believed that they did not have the ability to sleep enough every night.

So what’s the big deal with not sleeping all that much? How does it really change the abilities of a student? Teenagers are recommended to get 8-10 hours of sleep each night night, according to medical research. However, the majority of students who reported that they got less than 8 hours a night (the largest numbers falling under the category of getting 6 hours a night). And sleeping so little can have devastating effects on students abilities to succeed in the classroom.

Spending less time with your head on the pillow can effect one’s well being in numerous ways. Some of these adjustments  include (but are NOT limited to), lowered alertness, poor memory skills, difficulty interacting with others, and even increasing one’s likeliness in getting in car accidents. Sacrificing sleep to work on memorizing formulas and practicing trig problems could actually work against you, as backwards as that may seem.

So is there anyway to resolve the seemingly unavoidable issue of not having the opportunity to sleep?

Be smart.

Plan your schedule so that you have time for breaks, whether it be taking a nap or doing something which relaxes your mind. By working through your responsibilities in a strategic fashion, you lower the necessity of having to go to bed at such obscene hours. Planning through the things which you have to do can help you to budget your time, allowing you to sleep at healthy rates.

Sleep is crucial to your well-being. Understand this. While it may seem important and smart to stay up until the wee hours of the night working on assignments, sometimes the best thing to do is to let yourself rest.