by MacKenzie Sackett |

Looking around the halls at LHS, it is easy to see that a lot of students are wearing sweats and not to mention, a tired, stressed face. It seems that more than usual, students are feeling tired at school or find it hard to concentrate in class; others are even falling asleep during class. At times, students can be so tired that they wake up late and miss part of their first hour class, or just skip school because they are so exhausted and stressed by the everyday aspects of being in high school.
“I get about 6 hours of sleep a night. I have to give a friend a ride to school in the morning and I like to be here early, around 7 a.m., since school starts at 7:45 a.m. I don’t start my homework until 9 or 10 at night because I am in so many extra curricular activities; I’m in Debate, the plays and Exit 1-6 which takes up a lot of my time and then I stay after school for a couple hours for debate and rehearsals. It doesn’t leave much room for time to do homework and get enough sleep,” junior Jimmy Sitzman said.
But what is enough sleep? Most teens need about 8½ to more than 9 hours of sleep each night, according to kidshealth.org. From a study conducted by The Bell Staff, only 3 students out of the 169 interviewed get 9 hours of sleep each night. 32% of students who participated in the study only get 5 hours of sleep or fewer each night. 28% get 6 hours of sleep and 19% get at least 8 hours of sleep each night. These percentages show a range of students that say they do not get the right amount of sleep because they are either stressed, have an after school job, have too much school work or need a later school start time.
“I go to bed around 11 or 12. I have a problem falling asleep and I have a ton of homework. It’s very stressful, all the projects that we have to do, the papers that we have to write and the books we have to read. It’s just homework overload. If we didn’t have so much homework every night, that would help my stress a lot,” senior Lexie Browning said.
According to an article by MSNBC, teens experience higher stress in high school than adults do. A study done by Associated Press/MTV, shows that teens among the ages of 13-17 years old say that school is by far the most commonly mentioned source of stress. Students have so much to worry about during high school such as, making good grades in order to get into the college they desire, being in a club or sports activity or dealing with friends and relationship drama.
“I can’t do my homework when there are a ton of people around me. I also have cheer after school, so I don’t usually get to do my homework until midnight and I don’t go to bed until at least 3 a.m.,” junior Allie Holyfield said.
Students not only have the stress of school to deal with, most also have an after school job that can cause stress too, which doesn’t leave much time for being able to do homework.
“I work at least 30 hours a week. I usually work 4:30 to 10:30 and when I get home I do my homework. I only get about 6 hours of sleep during the week,” senior Marriah Schweitzer
A later school start time may help students get more sleep because they would feel more rested. It could help with students’ grades and make them not feel as tired and as stressed.
“It would be a lot better if we had a later school start time because students go to sleep pretty late as it is and it wouldn’t make them go to bed any later. It would just make it a lot easier on everyone and on the teachers too, not just the students,” senior Austin Morales said.