Why Sleep? Lilly T (feature)

Teenagers: so opinionated, so full of potential, so angsty, and so… tired. Walking on to the Seattle Prep campus in January can feel akin to walking onto the set of “The Walking Dead.” Between schoolwork, sports, and family- who can find the time to sleep eight hours a night? And why should you? The Panther set out to find out why teenagers need to sleep so much from the most qualified people around: Prep science and health teachers.

Why we sleep isn’t a question that most of us think about. Sleep is something instinctive to us; when we sleep more we feel better and vice versa. Unfortunately, there is no satisfying answer to this simple question. “No one really knows” says Science Teacher Mr. Meza. “There is not a single scientist who can say why we sleep.”

He explained that though we don’t know for sure, theories have attempted to explain the reason. “One competing theory is [sleep is] where you’re putting together your long-term memory. Another is that it allows body parts to shut down and not use as much energy so that they can repair. But there’s no way for us to 100% really know that.”

What scientists do know is what happens when humans don’t get enough sleep. Meza said “When we don’t sleep enough we see lack of memory recall, we see irritability, we see hunger, and we see a tendency to carb crave.”

It is fair to say that most Prep students have experienced at least one of these symptoms at some point in their high school careers. Meza also remarked that because of the vast amount of options offered at Prep, students tend to overwhelm themselves with work. “It’s one thing to say, ‘you can choose fifty different things’ when our student population will choose fifty different things, so how do we get them to choose appropriately within a framework of balance?” Indeed, most balance can be an elusive concept for many high schoolers

Sleep is often seen as a necessary sacrifice when compared with other aspects of life.  According to the National Sleep Foundation, most teens do not get enough sleep — one study found that only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights. Meza summed the importance of sleep well when he said, “Why do I think that its important? Oh my god, I just think about being an adolescent. That’s a tough time in life. “