Torin’s Troubles is a semi-regular column that involves Torin Priddle ranting about things encountered in the life of a typical high school student.
Why is sleep so important? More specifically, why do I have to sleep every night for eight hours? If I get any less than eight hours, I feel groggy and tired. I can’t even complain if I get less than that, because apparently everyone else only sleeps for about four hours every night, so I don’t get to throw myself a pity party.
I can’t help but imagine what I could do with the extra time I’d get from not having to sleep. Probably homework. I seem to spend a lot of time doing homework, anyway. That’s what I seem to lose the most sleep over. I just never seem to have enough time in the day for it. Now, is that because of the amount of homework I receive, or because I’m just really efficient at doing homework, I wonder? It’s probably a little bit of both. I often receive homework from two or more classes which often does take up quite a bit of time to complete, but I also feel like I tend to drift off in the middle of my homework, and either look at stuff on my phone or stare off into space. Neither of these lend themselves to completing homework in an efficient manner.
The National Sleep Foundation claims that teenagers need eight to ten hours of sleep per night to function at their best. Not getting enough sleep can cause the brain to operate more slowly, and to make it harder to remember names, numbers and responsibilities, which are helpful to high school students, whose lives consist of remembering things. I think it’s pretty important to be able to do well at school, so getting enough sleep is a definite must for me.
So how can I get more sleep while completing homework? I try to ignore my phone while doing my homework so that I can finish it quicker. Also, actually going to bed instead of watching random Youtube videos so that I can fit more sleep in. By doing this, hopefully I’ll be able to get more sleep and feel more equipped to tackle the challenges of school.
