Sleep is extremely important for everyone. You need sleep because sleeping allows your body and your mind to recharge. Getting a good amount of sleep will help improve your brain function, mental, and physical health. 

According to The Sleep Foundation, Teens need between 8 and 10 hours of sleep each night for normal brain and cognitive function. However, “73 percent of high school students regularly do not get a healthy amount of sleep” (Campbell 2019). In fact, most teenagers only get 6.5-7.5 hours of sleep each night. There are several contributing factors to why adolescents are not getting the healthy amount of sleep they need to function. The most common contributing factors to this issue are electronic devices, homework overload, caffeine, and anxiety. Teenagers spend an average of three hours a day on social media. “However, there are also reports that some teens are spending as much as nine hours on social media. This is much higher than older demographics, which reportedly spend 2 ½ hours a day” (Wise 2022).

Sleep deprivation can cause teens to have increased moodiness, trouble staying awake in school, drowsiness while driving, disinterest in activities, and even symptoms of depression.
There are several different ways teenagers can fix this growing issue of not getting enough sleep. These include having a set bedtime every night, avoiding caffeine in the hours before bed, putting electronic devices away around 30 minutes before bed, and remaining active during the day so your body is tired when it is time for bed. Doing these things can help improve your bad sleep habits. Getting a good night’s rest is important because it can greatly improve your brain function, mental, and physical health.

Sources:

• https://www.healthline.com/health-news/73-of-high-school-students-dont-get-enough-sleep 
• https://www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works/why-do-we-need-sleep#:~:text=Sleep%20is%20an%20essential%20function,the%20brain%20cannot%20function%20properly 
• https://earthweb.com/how-much-time-do-people-spend-on-social-media/#:~:text=Summary%20of%20Time%20Spent%20on%20Social%20Media%20in%202022,-The%20average%20person&text=Teens%20are%20the%20demographic%20spending,a%20day%20on%20social%20media. 

This is a link to a website with over 1000 writing prompts for students that I found. I just thought I would share it with you in case you wanted to post it in google classroom or something!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/12/learning/over-1000-writing-prompts-for-students.html