For the past couple of years, the majority of high school students have shared one commonality: insufficient sleep schedules, and according to the National Sleep Foundation, this trend among teens continues to rise. As high school students are increasingly buried with homework, extracurricular activities and stress, the general lack of sleep has been a problem that negatively affects the productivity, comprehension and emotion of teenagers.

There is a general notion that a large workload is the sole cause of a student’s lack of sleep, but those who constantly stay up late to complete homework tend to have a problem with their work ethic, history teacher Jessica Drogos said.

“If students fall behind on the [class] schedule, then they may have some late nights closer to test dates or when essays are due,” Drogos said.

As a teacher of AP European History, one of the most difficult classes offered at LT, Drogos explains how teachers give an effort to help students manage their time as efficiently as possible.

“The purpose of the unit schedules that Keith Bailey and I give the students at the beginning of every unit is to help the students work out a time management schedule so that they can complete the reading, note-taking and research before studying for their tests,” she said. “On average, each Euro chapter is about 30 pages, and at the beginning of the year, students are not used to that volume of active reading.”

Teachers will do everything to ensure proper sleep and time management for their students, but Mariah Kulhanek ‘18, currently taking six AP classes, believes that her lack of sleep is inevitable.

“Two nights of the week, I go to bed around two in the morning,” Kulhanek said. “Another two nights I’ll be in bed by one, while one night, if I’m lucky, I’ll be in bed by midnight.”

The reason for her insufficient sleep schedule is mainly due to the enormous amount of homework she is assigned each night, Kulhanek said. On average, Kulhanek gets between three to five hours of homework a night, along with working two times a week after school and eight hours on Saturday. This ultimately minimizes her amount of sleep per day.

The effects of Kulhanek and other students’ minimal sleep do not simply cause drowsiness the next day, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Studies show that 46 percent of students feel sad everyday while at school, and 73 percent of these students who expressed these emotions report to have less than six hours of sleep per night, which is more than three hours less than the nine-hour suggested sleep time for teens. Therefore, the overall lack of sleep in high school students makes them tired and emotionally dejected throughout their entire day of school.

The problem of Kulhanek’s insufficient sleep schedule is responsible for her usual lack of alertness at school, Kulhanek said.

“I fall asleep almost everyday in AP Government,” she said. “I need to drink a lot of caffeine everyday.”

As the problem persists, Drogos continues to implement suggestions for how to combat this situation.

“I have many suggestions to help students become more successful in the class, whether it be with managing the workload or honing the skills of the course,” Drogos said. “Each student’s situation is unique and I always welcome students to come in and talk with me about what they are currently doing and how they can improve.”