HHS 2010 advocates for more sleep

If you're a senior at Herricks you've probably already heard about this, and if you're a lower classman you might have seen the groups on facebook. A few weeks ago Mr. McManus taught all of his AP Psych students about sleep and enlightened us to see how terrible it is that none of us are getting the right amount of sleep each night. This Thursday is the fireside chat with the Board of Education. A lot of seniors plan on going, but since I don't think I can make it I wrote on the facebook group so that I could still share my opinions and feelings on this topic. It was something that was really easy to write, which tells me how passionate I am about this issue. I thought I'd share what I wrote on here and then add a bit of new stuff at the end

Teenagers are natural night owls. We like to go to bed at midnight and wake up at 9. Thats what our body naturally wants. Add in artificial light and technology and these sleep-wake patterns get screwed up. Add in an early school start time and we still go to sleep late but have to wake up early. There's nothing we can do about this. It's our body telling us what it wants. It's like depriving yourself of food when you're body says I'm hungry. It's not healthy.

We all live in a district that prides itself of doing what's best for it's students. Our taxes are higher because our parents want their kids to get a better education. But how can our district say they want us to be educated and healthy and not give us more time to sleep? There is no scientific evidence that smart boards in every single classroom brings in higher grades and SAT scores. There is factual evidence that 15 more minutes of sleep is the difference between a B and an A and that kids who start school later do better on the SATs

So just go to sleep earlier, right? Wrong! Like I already said, we're natural night owls. Even if we tried to go to sleep at 9 PM, the majority of us wouldn't be able to fall usleep until 11 or 12. When we have to wake up at around 6 or 6:30 AM for school the next morning, this is a problem. There just simply isn't enough time for our bodies to be fully rested and for our brains to develop they way they should be. Did I mention that sleep deprived teens actually have brains that aren't developing correctly? Wait... so we're waking up early to go to school which is supposed to make us smarter, but by doing so we're actually doing damage to the part of our body that's the most involved in our learning. How is this beneficial?

I understand that there are problems with a later start time. It'll cost money. Older kids have to be home to babysit. Sports teams need to get to games. Etc.. But if you think about it there are so many health issues at risk here because we're all sleep deprived.

Unless you are getting 9 hours of sleep every single night, you are sleep deprived. And if we want to do what is best for us then shouldn't sleep be our number one concern right now? Shouldn't we be more open to adjustment if getting more sleep will help our immune systems fight that dreaded seasonal cold, keeping those doctor visits and $20 co-pays away? Shouldn't we be willing to invest in less smart boards and brand new laptops and things of that nature so that we could buy ourselves a new bus and improve all of our grades just by getting more sleep? I for one would love to sleep an extra 15 minute each night and see an improvement in my ability to study, to concentrate, and find that I do my homework more efficiently each night.

It seems to me that money, babysitting, and sports teams just cannot compete with our health.

As a dancer, singer, and actress. Sleep seems even more important for me. My body is my instrument in everything I do. Over the past few years, I've been learning a lot about my instrument, and what I've learned is that it's extremely sensitive. Especially my voice. Any little adjustment to my normal day to day schedule or enviroment throws it off. The weather, the moisture level in the air, my womanly cycle, and most importantly, how much sleep I get. Now as a training theater person, this is stuff that I'm currently learning how to work around since most of it you can't control. People on Broadway have to perform in the winter months when the heating systems in their houses are sucking the moisture out of the air. Therefor, I'm learning how to cope and part of that coping deals with an intricate high maintanance schedule of things... I steam every night, I sleep with a hummidifier, I drink this herbal tea with honey every morning, I have to vocalize every day even if I don't plan on singing, Etc... But it's worth it.

Anyway, back to sleep. On days when I find that my voice is really in it's place and the notes are just floating through the air, those are days in which I got my 9 hours of sleep the night before. It makes a huge difference. I don't have to spend as much time warming up, and I practice more efficiently. On days when I'm tired, it's a drag to get my voice placed well, and everything takes so much more time. If I could sleep and practice, my vocal technique would be through the roof. But practicing without sleep, doesn't get you anywhere quite as fast as you could with sleep.

I notice it with dance too. When you sleep you're body is supposed to re-allign itself. Your spine needs time to stretch out and relax from a whole days worth of carrying around the weight of gravity. When I get nine hours of sleep, I turn better, I jump better, my hip placement is better. Not to mention, my muscles can keep me going for a much longer time. I don't get winded or tired as quickly when I'm dancing.

We all think that getting good at your craft is really hard, and it takes a lot of work. I agree. I know that in order to get good at something in the arts you have to practice constantly. But, if we're all sleep deprived, and we all are, then we're practicing at less than maximum efficiency. So maybe the way to get to Carnegie Hall isn't to practice practice practice. Maybe the way to get to Carnegie Hall is to sleep then practice practice practice.