Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
Division of Batangas
District of Calaca
R. Concepcion Montessori School, Inc.

The Effects of Sleep Deprivation to the Mental Health of the Senior

High School Students of R. Concepcion Montessori

School, Inc. Calaca, Batangas: Basis for

Manual Handouts for Youth

Kimberly Josephine A. Macatangay

2019-2020
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION AND ITS BACKGROUND

Introduction

We, people, spent one-third of our lives by sleeping. Thus, it is so far from being

“unproductive” because it plays a direct role in making us full, energetic, and successful

for the remaining two-thirds of our lives. Sleep helps to fuel the brain and body; it also

plays a massive role in our health. It is essential to sleep in our wellbeing throughout our

lives. Sleeping also has a massive impact on our overall quality of life. It also helps us to

thrive by contributing to a healthy immune system.

When we sleep, according to the Health Navigator Organization (2019), our

bodies rest to decrease body temperature, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and

especially, to conserve and gain some energy. At the same time, sleeping leads to

physical growth because it helps our brains to remain active by laying down memory,

restoring daytime mental functioning, and carrying out processes. Regular and good

quality is needed because it is very important for brain functioning, emotional wellbeing,

physical health, and daytime performance.

Sleep is vital to our wellbeing. It is stated by National Sleep Foundation (2018)

that sleeping is as important as the air that we breathe, as important as the water that we

drink and as important as the food that we consume. And as a teenager, sleep helps us to

eat and better manage stress they also stated that it is natural to not able to fall asleep

before 11:00 pm. But, teens need to have about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to

function best on the next day.

 But as of today, mostly of teenagers do not get enough sleep that they need.

National Sleep Foundation (2018) found out that only 15% of teenagers have reported

sleeping 8 hours on school nights. During weekends, teenagers tend to have irregular

sleep patterns across the week and typically stay up late and sleep late of the night. These

causes to affect their biological clocks and hurt the quality of their sleep.

If teenagers need 8 to 10 hours of sleep to do their best and function well but

naturally go to school around 11;00 pm or so, they won’t be able to get the sleeping hours

that they need or to get more sleep, they have to arrive late at school or simply sleep on

class. Teens’ natural sleep cycle puts them in conflict with school start times. Most

students on the current generation, senior high school to be a specific need to set alarm on

their clocks or a parent to wake them on school days.

Not having enough sleep and not sleeping well will never be good for our health.

After a typical nights’ sleep, we may feel not restored and refreshed and be sleepy during

the day, but totally not aware that we have sleeping disorders or we are a sleep-deprived

person. We might think that symptoms are due to stress or think that it is nothing because

we tend to always felt that way and had no idea that we should feel differently about it. It

is important to realize that sleep deprivation is very often due to unrecognized sleep

disorders. Lack of awareness can result in a massive consequence. In fact, there are so

many people who remain undiagnosed for years due to a lack of awareness.

Sleep deprivation is also known as insufficient sleep or sleeplessness. Sleep

deprivation can cause fatigue, daytime sleepiness, clumsiness, and increase appetite

leading to weight gain.

 Sleep deprivation is very common to students, whom living in a culture that

promotes reduced sleep due to burden of academic works and social pursuits. The reasons

for poor sleep hygiene include alcohol and caffeine intake, stimulants, and technology

that prolongs students’ wakefulness and which prevent students in achieving sufficient

sleep time and good quality sleep.

A study published in Journal of Neuroscience, year 2014 that was written by

Haiken, states that staying awake for a long period of time destroys brain cells. This

study shows that irreversible brain cell damage can be the cause of sleep loss. A

particular part of brain cell called locus ceruleus (LC) neurons, who plays an important

role in keeping us alert and awake can be damaged by prolonging wakefulness.

Sleep deprivation put teenagers into a kind of perpetual cloud or haze. Dr. Many

Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry (2003) explains that the haze can negatively affects

teenagers’ mood, ability to think, to react, to regulate their emotions, to learn and to

interact with other people. There is a connection between overall poor quality; sleep

duration; late bedtimes; and aggression; impulsivity; and being short-tempered of a

person.

Insufficient sleep among students may not only contribute to lower grades and

lack of motivation, but may also increase the odds of serious levels of emotional and

behavioral disturbances. Lack of sleep should no longer be considered part of traditional

adolescent because it can have a serious consequence.

Youth nowadays have lack of knowledge about the effects of sleep deprivation to

their mental health. Lack of sleep in teens is not a normal part of growing up sleep-
deprived teens are more likely to have lack of impulse control and suffer from impaired

judgement that leads to poor decision-making. In fact, most of teens have so much fun

while prolonging their wakefulness without knowing that they could be a sleep-deprived

person who face a lot of effects on their mental and physical health.

Background

This study was conducted at R. Concepcion Montessori School, Inc. Calaca,

Batangas school year 2019-2020, with the help of other Senior High School Students,

researcher knew the different effects of sleep deprivation to their mental health by

answering questionnaires that will be given by the researcher and they answered it with

their own experience and with full honesty.

This study will help other youths to know the effects of sleep deprivation. In this

way, if youth will be educated about the effects of sleep deprivation, they will stop

themselves and their friends and family from prolonging their wakefulness. This study

may also help other youths to know if they are diagnosed to sleep deprivation or not. This

study may also encourage other teenagers to promote sleeping at earlier hours and

preventing other youth to prolong their wakefulness.

This study will be conducted because the researcher wants to know if there are

effects of sleep deprivation to the mental health because the researcher, personally, is also

one of sleep-deprived students due to heavy school loads and stress. By conducting this

study, the researcher was educated enough about the effects of sleep deprivation, at the

same time, the researcher could help other youths that have limited knowledge about the

effects of sleep deprivation to their mental health.