School can be stressful, with tests and homework, students always feel tired. Students forget everything they learn in one class by the time they reach their next one. Students can barely focus in classes because their mind is always on something else. Whether it’s from classwork or the class itself, students can’t wait for the day to end so they can go home and do what they want rather than take notes or do classwork. Teen mental health is declining more and more as they enter the school year. 

  Being tired isn’t always being sleepy, being tired could mean that you’re physically drained or even mentally drained. Some students fall asleep in class, me being one of them. Students fall asleep in class for various reasons, and most of those reasons are pointed toward school. Students put their heads down because they can’t focus and would rather be doing something else. Class after class students grow more tired and want to go home. 

If you look around at Agua Fria during a typical school day, lots of students walk with their heads down and have their earbuds playing music to block out everyone else. Even if the teachers are nice, no matter how much work there is, students still want to leave. It’s hard to focus in class sometimes even when teachers explain things very thoroughly. Distractions in class can be anything, not just a phone or headphones. Personally, I can be distracted by anything if I’m bored enough, other tabs on my Chromebook, empty space on a paper that I could fit a drawing on, or even my pencil can distract me enough to block out my surroundings. 

Sleep is important and it’s good for the body, so why do we still get so little of it? According to BetterHealth, “Sleep research suggests that a teenager needs between eight and 10 hours of sleep every night. Most teenagers only get about 6.5-7.5 hours of sleep per night.” For me, I tend to get an average of 4-5.5 hours of sleep on school nights and 9-10.5 hours of sleep on non-school nights. Some of my friends have a worse sleep schedule than I do and they’re just as tired during school as I am. Students that have to take the bus have to wake up early to have enough time to get ready and be at the bus stop by the right time. No one ever wants to get up in the morning, waking up is easy, the hard part is getting out of bed and getting ready rather than giving in to the temptation and going back to sleep.