Don’t rest on your

     According to the Sleep Foundation, it is important to have good sleep habits because rest is “important for both physical and mental health, improving productivity, and overall quality of life.” 

     Junior Mady Hawkins  says that one of her most important sleep habits is “going to bed at the same time every night” because it allows her, “to watch an episode of a show[.] ”This helps her wind down at night so she can, “go to sleep faster.”  

     Junior Jenny Korczak states that their slumber habits include “making sure [she] is asleep by 10:30 p.m. unless given a reason otherwise.” Korczak also enjoys, “putting on relaxing music [or] a podcast at low volume with [her] fan for background noise and turning off as many lights in [their] room as [she] can.” 

     According to Hawkins, some factors that influence her sleeping habits include her phone, the temperature, lighting of her room, and the amount of noise in her bedroom. The junior says her phone can “be very distracting at night, so it is easy for [her] to be on [her] phone for a long time without realizing it [,]” which forces her to go to bed later than normal. 

   Junior  Regan Kaplan agrees that her phone is a major influence on her resting habits since she sleeps with it beside her. She says that if she “see[s] it light up, [she] tends to check it[.]” The junior is then on her phone for longer than necessary, keeping her awake for longer than she’d like. 

     Korczak states that their resting habits are influenced by, “the amount of homework [she has] to complete that night, because [they] have a lot of it with the difficult classes [she] is taking.” The larger the mountain of homework the less sleep they receive that night. Korczak adds that another factor is, “[her] work schedule because it changes the time [they] get home [,] as well as the amount of time [she] has for homework earlier in the day.”   

     Junior Dani Burton says that school heavily impacts her sleeping schedule because it, “makes [her] feel drained [,] so [she] tends to nap when [she] gets home, which makes falling asleep harder.”  

     Korczak says their habits affect her during the school year by “determining how easily [they are] able to focus in school, because the amount of sleep [she gets] has a huge impact on [their] mental state.” 

     Hawkins believes her resting habits affect her more heavily at the beginning of the school year because her sleep schedule is, “usually still messed up from being on summer break for so long.” The junior tends to, “get less sleep when school first starts.” According to Hawkins, she feels “less motivated to get up and go to school the next day,” if she stays up too late the night before.  

     Kaplan states that someone can avoid poor sleep habits during the school year by “going to bed at pretty much the same time every night,” as well as by,  “turning off their phone and TV before they get in bed, so all they are focused on is sleeping.” 

     Burton says setting aside a set time to sleep makes getting to bed easier. She believes that “by going to bed at different times, it makes it so your brain doesn’t send off the signal that you should go to bed, because it doesn’t know when you normally sleep.” 

     Hawkins believes that “limits to going to bed at an acceptable hour are outside influences like your phone, tv, and homework.” She adds that “things like stress from the school day or stress for the next day can also limit your ability because they can cause you to lose sleep.” 

     Burton finds that how much she procrastinates her work and how long extracurriculars take impacts her ability to get to bed at a reasonable hour. 

     To overcome these limitations, Burton believes in, “planning ahead and getting your work done well before it’s due.” Korczak adds that someone could also, “[turn] on- screen time limitations on [their] phone, using the bedtime feature on phones, and using available downtime to work on homework.”