The effect of sleep deprivation on Catlin Gabel students

By Al Rivers, ‘25

"I feel like I'm constantly running and running until the weekend. No rest," one Catlin Gabel School (CGS) teenager confided, their schedule crammed every day and bedtime often creeping towards midnight. 

Their experience is shared. Nearly three-quarters of high school students didn't get enough sleep, even before the pandemic, according to a 2018 study. Sleep deprivation is so prevalent and with such important health and wellbeing impacts that the World Health Organization has labeled this issue a "global health epidemic." 

Why is this so important? According to the Sleep Foundation, sleep is essential for the good physical upkeep of our bodies. Sleep is imperative for the healing and repair of our heart and blood vessels, and lack of sleep can cause an increased risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and even stroke. 

For high schoolers especially, sleep is vital because it improves cognitive skills such as the ability to pay attention, working memory, and learning. When we don't get enough sleep, our decision-making skills are greatly impaired. The National Institutes of Health says sleep is essential and should be considered a top priority. For adolescents, whose brains are going through complete metamorphosis, it is absolutely crucial.

If sleep is so important, why do we continue to get too little of it? Like many things in our life related to health, our behavioral choices are complex. They are societally influenced by our friends, jobs, age, stages in life, and uses of technology.

I set out to learn what was going on for teenagers today, so I sent out an Upper School-wide survey. A majority of the 123 anonymous responses reported that the cause of their sleep deprivation can be attributed to having too much homework, the overwhelming insight was much more complicated. 

Most respondents lamented that they were tired for a plethora of compounding reasons.

Teenagers are not only burdened with a large amount of homework, their extracurricular activities are also busy with their time allotted for sleep. 

“Catlin Gabel's workload would be entirely manageable and conducive to a healthy sleep schedule if students were not also involved in other activities, such as extracurriculars, athletics, or employment. As a student, I find that our current workload policy - or at least its implementation - fails to acknowledge the aspects of my lifestyle that make me a more well-rounded person," said one student. 

A high school student's typical day might be full already with planned activities, like this:

7 am up, get ready, go to school

3:30 pm → classes end

3:30–5:30 pm → doing an athletic or other activity

5:30 - 6 pm → 30 minutes to drive home and have a snack or a break.

6 - 8 pm → 2 hours of homework

8 - 9 pm → dinner break

9 - 10 pm → 1 hour of homework

10 - 10:30 pm → get ready for bed

10:30 - 11 pm → 15 - 30 minutes to fall asleep (43.1% of catlin students estimated the time it takes them to fall asleep). 

This equates to eight hours of sleep, not the recommended 9 hours for adolescent brains. Adding social time, social media time, downtime, and other after-school classes, it pushes bedtime to midnight or later.

As well, for more perspective, a student stated, "I think a lot of people at Catlin aren't getting enough sleep just because they do not have time. I'm sure many of us just stay up because we don't feel like sleeping, but many are so busy that sleep gets overshadowed by busy schedules and heavy workloads." This represents a typical response to the survey that showed how students struggle to manage the amount of homework assigned. 

Culturally, teenagers view sleep deprivation as ‘cool’ or ‘relatable.’ The idea that ‘sleep is for the weak’ is a common sentiment among young people. We idolize pulling all-nighters and bragging about going to bed in the early morning hours.

But there is something even deeper going on. Many of the surveyed students reported they utilize their time for sleep to read, play games, or watch what? TV? YouTube? Netflix? because they had no time earlier in the day to do so. 

It is common for people to make certain decisions in an effort to feel control over their lives when they actually don't have much choice, even if these decisions are poor. For teenagers, that is staying up late. 

Psychology writer Kendra Cherry wrote "What Is Revenge Bedtime Procrastination?" in 2014 about people wanting to stay awake even though they know that it will have harmful consequences and outcomes. These young people do not regularly have time to themselves. Thus, many students put off sleeping. 

Revenge Procrastination first came to light in China, the term used to describe how people often working 12-hour days would stay up as their only way to take back some control of their time. People fall into revenge bedtime procrastination without being aware and get less sleep than they need. 

Today, there are many ways to take back some of that time we need to be able to socialize or have some alone time without sacrificing our sleep: unplug from our devices. Scientists point to increased device use and overworking, together delaying sleep time.

It is "a problem that has been associated with rising rates of electronic device use in bed," stated the Sleep Foundation. 

Some of our own CGS teens have affirmed that their lack of sleep may be due to device usage. 

Still, we continue to make self-deprecating jokes and brag about our sleep issues. This norm creates a situation where feelings of sadness, depression, and anxiety are considered aesthetic, and online insomnia is trendy.

It seems the problems we face as high schoolers at CGS are common. A 2018 study found that 73% of high school students regularly do not meet the general sleep requirements. By 2012, the World Health Organization had announced that the world was amidst a global sleep deprivation epidemic, confirmed by scientists and evidence-based practitioners. 

High school students are a part of a new age of sleep deprivation.