BY BRIANNA MILLER

If you walk into a first block classroom, you will often see a class of students who are practically unresponsive, either chugging down coffee, or staring into space.
Actually, if you walk into a classroom during any block you are likely to witness the same phenomenon only on a smaller scale. Teachers need not be offended, because the catalyst for this phenomenon is sleep deprivation.
Many doctors recommend that students sleep nine hours on a schoolnight. However, between essays, tests, sports and other after-school activities, some students are only able to sleep for six. With six hours of sleep, it’s incredibly painful and difficult to endure six hours of school.
We, the students, may become moody, drowsy, forgetful, distracted, stressed, angry and less capable of performing well in the classroom.
We may be so tired that we sometimes actually do leave our essays in the printers at home, or mess up when we e-mail them, or don’t even do the essays because it is two in the morning and we fall asleep before finishing. Then, teachers wonder why we procrastinate on starting large projects in the first place. Well, in response, by the time we finish our regular homework on all the other nights before the project is due, we make the healthy choice and go to bed.
Since when is the healthy choice criticized? “I was too tired to do my work” as an excuse is hardly acceptable, so how do students reconcile their sleep loss after a late night of homework? Some resort to toddler tactics and take a nap after a draining day of school. Unfortunately, napping can have a detrimental impact upon one’s schedule. If you nap after school, you start your homework late, and in turn go to bed late or wake up early to do it, leading to lethargy the next day.
All the while, the likelihood of taking another nap and continuing the cycle increases. Hence, you will be in a constant state of drowsiness.
If napping is bad, then how do students catch up on sleep? In all honesty, they probably do not. In order to get enough sleep during this crucial time in our adolescent development, students just need to know when to put their books down and hit the sack.
Out of true concern for your well-being, you should just go to sleep after you have already invested maximum effort and have accomplished as much as possible. It should be a standard that health comes first, and the importance of sleep, especially for teenagers, should be recognized.
In the long run, an incomplete assignment here and there has no significance. However, a lifestyle of limited sleep will have its toll on the rest of your life.
Together, teachers assign hours of homework, parents lay on the pressure, coaches schedule hours of practice, employers expect enthusiasm and hard work, but at the end of the day, some of us just need to sleep.