Project Citizen: Need a Nap?

Lucky you; there’s a solution!

Story by: Sofia Hayes

Are you falling asleep in class? Do you constantly think about how tired you are? These were just a few questions asked by those presenting their project citizen last Thursday morning. Laura Schmidt, Isaac Richards, Sam Lauritsen, Shayla Lords and Sarah Potter expressed their concerns on sleep deprivation and proposed insightful solutions on how to go about the issue.

Students don’t realize the harmful effects that sleep deprivation can have on the human body. How much sleep one gets may determine the way they think, speak, or act. During the presentation, facts were brought up that illustrated the severity of the problem. According to studies, those who get less hours of sleep, on average, have a lower GPA.

Additionally, those who are sleep deprived are 25% more likely to have thoughts of depression and are 20% more likely to have thoughts on suicide.

Based on how many hours of sleep you get, does your GPA match up?

What Can be Done?

Along with studying the harmful effects of sleep deprivation, this project citizen group researched four major solutions to combat this dilemma. In the end, it was clear that a combination of two solutions would be best. This option would include earlier school start times and educating students on sleep deprivation.

Although starting school earlier may seem counter-productive as hours are essentially removed from the sleep schedule of a student, hopefully knowing that school starts earlier would encourage students to go to bed earlier.

Times that students went to bed knowing they had to wake up for zero hour the next day.

This would pave the way for an early-to-bed-early-to-rise sleep schedule. School would also be dismissed at an earlier hour, allowing students to have more time in the day to accomplish what they need.

“When I go to bed early and wake up early, I am always very excited. I get up knowing that I am going to have the entire day to be productive and get things done!” Said Senior Isaac Richards.

Implementing a new curriculum in health classes on sleep deprivation would make students more aware of the issue and encourage them to get more sleep. If students knew how essential a good night’s rest was to their health, they wouldn’t complain about going to bed and getting up early.

“Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” -Benjamin Franklin