Santos 1

Lovella Santos

Instructor Judith McCann

English 1302.203

16 February 2022

Second Draft (Adolescents and the need to Sleep)

Thomas Dekker once said “Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies

together.” In other words, sleeping is important because it helps fuel the body and brain. Sleep

has many benefits such as relieving stress, improving mood, thinking clearly, maintaining a

healthy weight, reducing sickness and much more. Children form ages of 5-12 should get 9 to 12

hours of sleep as for adolescents they should get 8 to 10 hours of sleep. But nowadays, many

teens struggle falling asleep, because of their life styles, too much stimulation from electronics,

school or other distracting factors. To see if sleeping early helps, a subject will be asked to sleep

early for 5 days in order to observe if sleeping helps the body improve mentally and physically.

To start off, sleeping is the best way to meditate. It helps the body, the mind and health.

Some factors that delay bedtime are composed of academics, extracurricular, and social life

which result to insufficient sleep hours (Simon 1). According to Beebe, “teens obtain less sleep

than recommended, with potential negative cognitive and physical consequences” (360).

Meaning teenagers lack sleep causing them to become get side effects. According to Simon,

some side effects include “high risk of type 2 diabetes, weight gain, physical activity, change of

diet, mood swings, depression, and poor performance in academics” (2). Prior to what was

mentioned, teenagers do not see the damage they make to them selves when they do not sleep.

Having a bad sleeps schedule could affect the academic performance, mood, mental health, and
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overall body health of adolescents since they do not allow themselves to have a healthy sleep

schedule.

Sleeping early is considered beneficial for many adolescents, reason being that most are

under pressure from school and the stimulation of the internet. A subject from the age of 17 was

asked to journal their process on sleeping early for 5 days. The subject has a history of sleeping

issues, often causing them to sleep during in convenient hours. Their normal sleeping hours often

range from 4-5 hours of sleep. The subject sleeps from 3:00 am to 7:00 am, this experiment will

help see if the subject improves its way of sleep and health. The decision of the subject was to

start sleeping at 11:00 pm and waking up at 7:00 am for 5 days. The starting line would be

Monday night and the finish line would be Friday night. In order to start the experiment in a

good not the subject was given instructions to ignore all electronics, finish everything that was

needed to be finish such as homework, and to turn off all lights in order to sleep well. The

experiment started on Monday at 9:00 pm, the subject had finished everything that was needed to

be finished and was preparing to go to sleep. The subject followed the instructions that were

given and slept at 10:00 pm, but woke up at 8:00 am. On Tuesday night the subject followed the

same process, but slept at 12:00 am and woke up at 6:00 am. On Wednesday night the subject

did the same process and successfully slept at 11:00 pm and woke up at 7:00 am. On Thursday

night the subject unfortunately did not follow instructions and directly slept at 7:00 pm and woke

up at 3:00 am. Finally, on Friday night the subject did not follow instructions and went to sleep

at 1:00 am and woke up at 12:00pm. (Need to add a closing sentence)

As a result, the experiment did not go as expected. The subject did and did not improve in

sleeping and in overall health. Throughout the 5 days the subject did not improve for the better

but for the worst. The expectations were to improve mentally and physically, but the experiment
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did not help at all. The 5 days that were experimented only 2 days had a difference in the

subject’s social life. Those 2 days were Tuesday and Wednesday in which the subject had great

results. In these two day the subject had great academic performance, improved mood and had

more time to do school work and other things, On Monday, Thursdays and Friday the subject had

it the worst. Their days were not great at all the subject kept falling asleep during academic

hours, did not pay attention in classes, felt dehydrated and hungry, and had migraines.

Furthermore, the subject had a harder time staying awake throughout the 5 days.

The subject had the worst experience doing the experiment. According to the subject,

“sleeping early has caused me to loose more time that the time I had in my past sleeping hours.”

Meaning that they did not find this experiment quite helpful. The subject felt “annoyed by my

own friends, have migraines all day, and feel so dehydrated and so hungry that I could have

eaten cow” (cite personal journal). The subject had side effects that were and were not

presentenced. But on the 2 days the subject had greater results the subject felt the contrary.

According to the subject, “I am so tired of this experiment that I want to stop, my migraines are

still here, and I am still dehydrated, but I do have more time for my self which is nice” (cite

personal journal). This experiment did not turn out as expected, the subject still sleeps in

inconvenient hours. (Thinking about adding a closing sentence)

(Conclusion) All in all...

(Something I want to include “sleeping is easier said than done” IDK yet)
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Work Cited

Beebe, D. W., et al. "0969 INDUCING MORE SLEEP ON SCHOOL NIGHTS REDUCES

SEDENTARY BEHAVIOR WITHOUT AFFECTING MORE VIGOROUS PHYSICAL

ACTIVITY IN SHORT- SLEEPING ADOLESCENTS." Sleep, vol. 40, 2017. ProQuest,

https://tamiu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/0969-

inducing-more-sleep-on-school-nights-reduces/docview/2503440841/se-2?accountid=7081,

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sleepj/zsx050.968.

Simon, Stacey L., et al. "A Model of Adolescent Sleep Health and Risk for Type 2

Diabetes." Current Diabetes Reports, vol. 21, no. 2, 2021. ProQuest,

https://tamiu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/model-

adolescent-sleep-health-risk-type-2/docview/2478168034/se-2?accountid=7081,

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11892-020-01373-1.

“Thomas Dekker Quotes.” BrainyQuote, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/thomas_dekker_204715.

Accessed 5 Feb. 2022.