ANNIEZHAO&SYDNEYCOLLINGER

sleeping enough or a tomorrow without craving the momentary relief stemming from the little band-aid.

One’s yawn retells the story of the late night cramming for a test. Their half-empty coffee cup retells their solution to the grogginess they feel in school. Their messy hair retells the fight to get out of bed that morning. But on some days, they are washed up, lying on their bed with their covers tucked in ready to sleep early. Those days are magical, almost impossible to recall. Teenagers need sleep, but most nights, they are unable to achieve enough of it.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 70% of high school students aren’t reaching their needed eight hours of sleep. Everyone wants to sleep. But so often, it’s the easy reassurances of, “Let me finish this one video then I’ll sleep,” or the, “I need to finish this homework,” which ultimately lead to sleep deprivation. This constant lack of sleep and undermining of its importance can slowly morph into sleep disorders, impacting teens' general health.

Covid-19 the pattern where they are so tired, and then they can't focus and they can't learn, which contributes to anxiety, depression and attention problems.”

Since school and class hours changed, the time for sleep molded to fit a student's desires. This easier workload allowed students to have more opportunities to give their minds and bodies a break.

“Online learning changed our sleep,” freshman Chloe Lang said. “We didn’t have to turn on our camera and school started really late. So, lots of students could sleep whenever they wanted. Also, online classes were much less work and easier. Right now, students can’t sleep a lot because of all the homework and procrastination.”

"Sleep is one of the single best things you can do for your brain. If we really wanted students to have great, awake, aware brains, we would emphasize sleep. But I don't think it's just school. It's society.”

Dr. Zachary Garrison, teacher

The unprecedented pandemic led schools to adapt to a virtual learning form. Virtual learning altered teen's sleep schedules, changing their internal clocks. Students could attend classes with a single click that brought them into school, no matter where they were. They could now sleep and wake up later since start times were pushed back.

“The circadian rhythm that each person follows got extremely messed up during COVID,” high school nurse Nikki Harrison said. “For one, teenagers were doing school virtually, [so] they could’ve stayed up at night, playing video games on their phone. Teenagers from [ages] 12 to 18 still need a good eight to 10 hours. Students are in

“Caffeine counteracts what your body is naturally trying to do," social studies teacher Dr. Zachary Garrison said. "It's kind of like hunger. Your body is telling you that you're hungry, your body is telling you you need sleep, and it's a way to push that aside. Ultimately, when you don't listen to your body, it's not a good thing.” fall asleep due to its distraction and white light. Phones, computers and TVs lure people in to ignore the constant time passing. much done in a day, or else we're not going to have the outcome that we want. And I think it's kind of an unhealthy attitude to have."

A glance around school proves how evasive caffeinated drinks are — the coffee mugs or energy drinks in student's hands are what they depend on to get through the day. Some students may feel pressured to try the stimulants that many of their friends drink as well. But often, the stimulants don’t serve the same purpose to one person as they do for someone else.

Fast facts

Though there were benefits of an easier workload and more time to sleep, difficulties persisted. The pandemic confined students at home with only access to others via online spaces, so there was a rise in mental health issues. But in order to address mental health, Harrison says we must recognize the “link” between the two.

“With COVID and a [rise in] mental health issues, sleeping has become worse,” Harrison said. “It was like perpetual summer where you could just stay up all night and then sleep all day. Unfortunately, it's hard to switch that pattern around. [Still], students come to school in a state where they just want to survive through class without enough sleep.”

Stimulants

Many students turn to stimulants to fight fatigue. Caffeine has become mainstream and is sold in the school cafeteria. While coffee isn’t dangerous in moderation, too much can lead to consequences, especially for teenagers.

“I don't do drugs,” Lang said. “A lot of my friends drink coffee, but I'm not going to give in to peer pressure and ruin my brain. Last time I drank coffee, it was really bad and I couldn’t sleep for threew days, so it felt [like] I went through withdrawal.”

Along with the drinks that students consume, melatonin is another common supplement that students take to induce sleep.

Garrison describes that it’s “fairly innocuous” and “a natural hormone.” While it is possible to use medications like melatonin to aid in sleep patterns, everyone is different in their needs to fall asleep.

“If someone is having trouble sleeping, they need to talk to their own doctor and see what they would recommend,” Harrison said. “There are supplements and there are even medications, like melatonin, but you need to know the person's history and know what other medications they can take.”

Hustle culture

This decade illustrates both the importance and the addiction people have to technology. Thus, the rise of technology is, in many ways, fueling the sleep crisis. By always having a device beside them, teenagers lose their natural instinct to

“We have developed cultural habits that go against our evolutionary patterns,” Garrison said. “It used to be that TV stations would turn off at 8 or 9 p.m. They would just stop showing anything. [But], now you can stream a movie anytime you want, and whenever. We've got a lot of technologies that allow us to stay cognitively aware when we should be shutting down and [sleeping].”

"A sleep routine that fts you is a good idea. [Some] people need to be in total darkness because as long as your brain interprets that there's light it's not sending you a message to not go to sleep."

Nikki Harrison, nurse

School induces stress because of all the work a student takes on. But Harrison says that the nurse's office is a place where “students can rest” if they are fatigued in school. Solutions are provided, but often it's up to the student to grasp hold of them.

Ladue’s culture tends to lean towards working hard and sleeping less, since many students take many difficult classes and participate in many extracurricular activities. Students flaunt to others about how many hours they slept, seeming like getting less should be an accomplishment.

“It’s kind of Ladue’s culture to sleep less,” junior Ari Willick said. “Ladue’s culture is that people like to brag about bad things. There are a lot of people that are like, ‘Oh, I was studying so much last night that I didn't fall asleep until really late.’ But, there're a lot of people that decide not to fall asleep that early anyway. This is a problem, which is why I wished that the school started later.”

As a society, people tend to place less emphasis on the importance of sleep. Students at Ladue grow up in a culture where they must always be working at something, or they are not succeeding. Many give up on sleep in order to achieve this.

“I don't think society does [a good enough job of getting students to prioritize sleep],” Garrison said. “I think school is falling into the same trap as society, which is that we have to take as many AP classes as we can, we have to get so

“School is a double-edged sword because anxiety and stress can cause sleep problems,” Harrison said. "Not sleeping enough can cause you to have more anxiety and depression. That's unfortunate because it seems students have a lot of anxiety, but on top of that [they are] not getting sleep."

Many people rely on short relief naps to gain back sleep they lost. While it’s not healthy to constantly rest, student's bodies demand for a break. Now, students have incorporated their own nap times or techniques, further emphasized by Willick who has acquired his tactics for having a good nap.

“I nap a few times every week,” Willick said. “But, you have to be very strategic with your naps. Because if you take a nap for about an hour to two hours, you'll wake up and you'll be super groggy for the rest of the day, no matter what else you have to do. It’s important to be conscious about what time of the day you're napping, and how long your naps are.”

Future of sleep

Routines are a common way to improve quality and length of sleep by setting aside time to unwind and get ready for bed. From the poll conducted by Panorama Jan. 19, examples of this are “brush[ing] teeth and skincare,” or “read[ing] for around 30 minutes.”

On average, young adults nap about days per year. The average young adult's nap minutes.

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The best time for a nap is betweenp.m.

“The number one way to develop good sleep habits is to create a routine in which you separate yourself from unnatural light screens [and] computer screens,” Garrison said. “Get in the habit of laying down without disruption, turn all the lights off and put away all types of artificial light. Maybe listen to something soothing; A certain kind of repetitive sound can kind of help slow your brain down. And once your brainwaves start slowing down, that's the first step in the sleep cycle.”

To promote healthy sleep habits, many turn to natural drinks that aid in the sleep cycle. Students reported drinking water or chamomile tea before bed, and Willick likes drinking “warm milk” to aid his sleep. When people are able to have good rest, they enter the rapid eye movement (REM) stage of sleep where dreams occur.

“One time, I was in a dream and I was on ‘The Amazing Race,’” Willick said. “I was really excited, except then there was a big pile of different flavors of cheese that we had to walk through. But, in my dream, I was allergic to cheese, so I had to give up on the race in the end.”

See page 20 for the staff's opinion on how stimulants affect teenagers

Some may feel stressed or anxious before going to bed, which can be helped via relaxation and breathing exercises. A few deep breaths or a meditation before sleep release pent-up worries and anxiety, decluttering the brain. Mental health and sleeping are connected. Therefore, adopting methods like this is successful in the long run to improve one’s general health.

“If at moments you feel anxious, then there's techniques, like breathing techniques and calming techniques, to use that can help you relax,” Harrison said. “The sleeping issues won’t get better unless we continue to address [our] mental health and how important sleep is for our mental health, for our physical health, and for ourselves.”

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