Within our generation, sleep depravity is not only a problem but a simple characteristic at this point. According to Nation’s Wide Children, teenagers need to sleep for 9 ¼ hours. However, in reality, most teens aren’t getting this much sleep.

On a nationwide level, kids get twos hours less than that. The effects of simply getting two hours less than what you should get doesn’t seem like it’d be too much of a problem. But it is.

Not getting enough sleep can lead to both long term and short term effects. For your mental health’s sake, according to Harvard Health Publishing not getting enough sleep can not only cause an increase in risk for psychiatric problems. This consists of different forms of depression and anxiety.

But what about on a local level? The lack of sleep pattern follows within our school. Grace Armstrong, a junior at YC, has a lot on her plate.

The balance of extracurriculars, sports, advanced school work, and sleep seem like quite a bit to juggle. “On average I’m probably rocking seven hours of sleep… six to six-and-a-half if there’s homework. My goal is eight but that never really happens.” Armstrong falls directly on the range of lack of rest that many teens across the nation struggle with.

The track athlete proceeded to talk about how her limited hours of sleep can affect her sport performance “I would say that I feel drowsy throughout the day at school.. Especially with sports, I often feel like I am running on empty.” With all the activities in her life, a good night’s sleep seems both crucial and impossible to acquire.

How exactly would we solve this unfortunate sleep crisis? Make school start later? On one hand, students would get more sleep. On the other, people may argue that being able to sleep later wouldn’t prepare them for the real world.

In the end, I feel as if focusing on the overall health of our youth is more significant than preparing them for a nine to five job.