t’s the first day of school. A student wakes up at 6:45 a.m. feeling groggy and tired. The student is an incoming freshman and this is earlier than they have ever had to wake up for school. They couldn’t fall asleep the night before, partly from nerves about the first day and partly from their sleeping schedule being messed up from summer. The student has been going to bed past 12 a.m. every night so when they got in bed at 10 p.m. the night before school, it took hours to fall asleep. That day, the students found themselves almost falling asleep in class and having to take a nap after school.
This story may feel familiar to students as, even four weeks into the year, they may still be adjusting to the routine of waking up early.
Students may have found it hard to get back into the school routine. “My sleeping schedule is still messed up from summer and I usually don’t get enough sleep and have to take naps after school,” junior Justin Heller said.
Freshmen may find this change more of a struggle than older students. “Adjusting to a new sleep schedule isn’t very easy compared to mine last year but I do things like eating better food and going to sleep earlier in order to wake up earlier and more energized in the morning,” freshman Jack Sisco said.
The traffic in the morning makes it difficult to arrive on time, meaning students have to wake up earlier in order to not be late. Students who live farther away from school have to wake up even earlier to beat the traffic, “When I’m at my mom’s house, which is far away from the school, I wake up at 6 . It has been hard to get back into the routine of waking up so early because my body is used to going to bed late and sleeping in,” junior Addison Purvis said.
The school wake up time may be causing students to get less sleep at night. One student finds that his summer sleep schedule is still in effect and resorts to taking naps just like Heller. “I only get six or five hours of sleep per night since school started, compared to summer when I could get nine hours every night. My body cannot fall asleep at an early time because of my summer sleep schedule,” junior Bryson Filbert said.
The messed up sleep schedules that cause tiredness in students also make it hard for them to do their work to their best capability, “I find getting less sleep because of my sleeping schedule makes school much harder to get through and I have to take naps,” Filbert said.
