Student Zombies : How Lack of Sleep Affects our Brains
Edited by William Seo
Design by Nicole Yang
By Brandon Oh, Elliot Kim and Brian Chun
“1:00 AM”, “2:30 AM”, “4:00 AM.”
These are the shocking responses we hear when we question the middle school students about when they sleep. In the SIS middle school, sleep is a huge problem. Most middle school students go to bed around 2:00 - 3:00 AM. On the nights before projects are due, or nights before big tests, students go to bed even later. Parents of these students are worried about the lack of sleep, and so are the teachers. It is not a rare occasion to see a student dozing off in class. In many cases, lack of sleep comes from students procrastinating. Some of these students admitted to procrastination affecting their sleep times. “To be honest, I can finish all of my homework quickly, but I keep procrastinating,” says Jessica Ryu (8). “Honestly I can get done [with homework] early, but I procrastinate, and there is lots of other work from hagwons,” says Amy Kim (8). “I slept so late because I was procrastinating, I had a lot of homework, and I came home at 1:00 AM because of hagwons,” says Lucas Oh (8). Excessive hagwons also plays a huge part in the sleep cycles of students. Hagwons not only result in students returning home late, but also puts even more workload on students. Long hours of sleep is already hard to come by, and factors such as hagwons and procrastination is making it even worse. Once we get into high school, this problem will become even more evident. With more workload, more tests, and more after-school school activities, high school will be a rough ride, and the lack of sleep will weigh us down even more. Ms. Burns, an 8th grade science teacher is worried about this issue, “Middle schooler’s brains are going through a crucial development period, and if you don’t get enough sleep, your brains won’t develop fully, and that will make highschool even harder.” Ms. Burns wants her students to fix their sleep habits so they can thrive in high school without being weighed down by their detrimental sleep cycles. |
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