Formal Blog #4

I listened to the talk Teens and Sleep. I thought that this was actually very interesting. The number of teens suffering from sleep deprivation is amazing. I am one of these included, as I write this I wish I were asleep. I learned that teenagers are recommended to get at least 9 hours of sleep, I actually did not know that. I always thought that the recommended hours of sleep were from 7-8 hours. I understand how many parents do not know when their children go to bed. For example, my parents are asleep a few hours before I am. With the recent technology in the bedrooms many people are playing with electronic devices instead of sleeping. For me, I listen to my iPod all through the night, and I almost always fall asleep while texting on my phone. I found this very interesting mostly because it pertains to my life. Lack of sleep affects you greatly on the decisions you make along with remembering things. Instead of staying up late cramming for a test, you should go to bed early and finish studying in the morning. This is actually quite interesting. If you look around school, you see many people walking around looking like a zombie, myself included.

Many teenagers believe it is okay to not sleep as much during the week and catching up on your sleep during the weekends. This isn't accurate, sleeping more on the weekends only messes up your internal clock. If you do this your brain will feel the need to sleep at the normal times you would be in school. I was most surprised to find out how much sleep an average teenager needs. Also I found it interesting about how teenagers are sleepy all day long while in school, but once it comes to the night, they wake up more. They compare this feeling to being in a constant state of jet lag. I believe that teens become more awake at night. During the school day, I am so tired and I want to take naps all the time. However, once I get home later at night, I start to get more energy, then I can't fall asleep when I should. On my normal school days, I will fall asleep between 12:30-1:00ish, and i usually wake up around 7:00. This radio talk was actually pretty interesting, and really deals with the teenagers' lives.