World Sleep Day

High schoolers should receive at least 8-10 hours of sleep per night, according to KidsHealth. However when looking around, most high school students are getting much less- some barely getting by with 3 hours of sleep on school nights. There’s a buildup of many reasons behind this, including schoolwork, home responsibilities, extracurricular activities, stress, or simply not prioritizing health enough. And similarly to the overall population across the world, many individuals don’t truly understand how much sleep affect long term health. Therefore, many don’t put in enough effort to prioritize getting enough sleep each night and compromise factors like their mood, attention span, susceptibility to injury and disease, etc. 

To combat this global issue, different organizations and groups push forwards programs and events in order to encourage the education of the importance of sleep and hopefully have people go to bed early. One of these events is called World Sleep Day, which was created by the World Sleep Day Committee of the World Sleep Society. Celebrated this year on Friday, March 14th, the goal of this event is to encourage sleep health across the world and introduce greater conversations about its importance. 

Especially in a society where work/school is so greatly emphasized, oftentimes above the importance of rest, a large portion of the population suffers from lack of sleep. Stress from upcoming exams or projects chip away slowly, spiraling out of control into difficulty falling asleep and restlessness. This causes fatigue, and it prevents an individual from performing to their normal ability or also inhibiting their ability to think. It’s also normalized, especially among younger people, to go to bed at a much later time- for example past 11pm. Because of how standardized this is among the age group, this causes many younger people to ignore sleepiness or exhaustion, instead staying up later times. Younger people also have different sleep cycles, because at the specific age, the melatonin in their bodies are released later than both children and adults, causing them to become tired later at night as well. All of these factors, combined with early morning activities that people might be committed to, really reduce the amount of hours of sleep a person is getting. And although one night of lesser sleep might not create the largest difference the following morning, over time, the lack of sleep adds up and can cause much more serious issues. Some health risks of not receiving enough sleep includes developing heart disease or tumors, diabetes, neurological diseases, high blood pressure, and overall just extreme fatigue. 

Therefore, World Sleep Day serves as a vital reminder to our society of the significant impact sleep has on our physical and mental health. By organizing this event and promoting it to people around the globe, people can help one another achieve healthier sleeping habits and learn about the importance of rest. Let’s all take a step towards prioritizing our sleep- not just for a day or two, but as a routine throughout our lives. 

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Sleep_Day 

• https://worldsleepday.org/ 

• https://www.texaschildrens.org/content/wellness/why-sleep-so-important#:~:text=Sleep%20is%20the%20time%20for,brain%20development%20hormones%20are%20released. 

• https://health.ucdavis.edu/blog/cultivating-health/better-sleep-why-its-important-for-your-health-and-tips-to-sleep-soundly/2023/03 

• https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/how-much-sleep.html#:~:text=Most%20teens%20need%20about%208,play%20their%20best%20in%20sports.