Sleep
Sleep
Read the article about sleep and then do the three exercises.
Sleepy teenagers
It’s official. Teenagers need more sleep than their parents. According to sleep experts, people aged between 10 and 17 need to sleep between 8.5 and 9.25 hours each night. Are you tired at the moment? What time did you go to bed last night? Have you ever fallen asleep in a class? Recent research shows that 25% of the UK population suffer from some sort of sleep disorder and two-thirds of British children may be sleep deprived.
Sleep lessons
Research in Scotland has shown that teenagers are suffering from sleep deprivation which is causing problems with behaviour, concentration and learning. To get 9 hours sleep, a teenager needs to go to bed at about 10pm during the school week. However, many young people watch TV till around midnight and then play computer games till late into the night. Teachers in Scotland now give lessons on the importance of sleep to their teenage pupils. The teachers want young people to understand that sleep is very important if you want to do well at school and enjoy your life.
Sleeping habits
People of different ages from around the UK emailed us about their sleeping habits:
I have a strange habit of falling asleep when I watch the television and it usually happens when I am watching something I am really interested in! The television seems to hypnotise me and I doze off really easily. Then when I go upstairs to bed I find I can’t sleep and I usually listen to the radio for hours and hours during the night.
Philip - aged 64
I have an eight-month-old baby and a 3-year-old so I don’t get much sleep at the moment. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had a whole night’s sleep. Last night I think I had about 5 hours, as the baby woke up three times. I work during the day and it can be difficult to stay awake when I haven’t slept much.
Clare - aged 35
I share a room with my older brother. He snores! It’s really annoying.
Clyde - aged 16
I read in the paper the other day that most children in Britain don’t sleep enough. They watch TV until late in the evening and then they are really tired at school. I’m a teacher and sometimes in the classes after lunch the students look as if they are about to fall asleep. They yawn a lot and look quite exhausted! Some people say that maybe school should start later for teenagers. I think they might be right.
Jag - aged 29
Sleep advice
If you have a sleep problem here is some advice from the sleep experts:
- You shouldn’t drink tea or coffee in the evenings.
- You should go to bed at the same time every night, even at the weekend.
For more tips on how to get a good night's sleep have a look at these exam study tips.
Comments
I go to the bed at 10 pm and I wake up at 6 am. This is enough for me. When I sleep 30 minutes less I already feel me tired. I try to keep this hour at the weekend, but I wake up an hour more later.
Hi Gabby! It sounds like you are getting the right amount of sleep. Keep it up! I hope you have lots of energy for school and learning English! ;-) Thanks for leaving a comment.
Jonathan (LearnEnglish Teens Team)
Hello, I go to the bed about 9pm and get up at 6 am and I think, that I should sleep more, because you havent´t much energy at school then....
I'm Exhausted right now , But it's 1:25 PM
I Think I'll have to stay up until it's 10:00 PM
And it's not always because of TV or Computer Games ...
It's not easy to sleep when you have problems with your family .. You Stay up thinking what to do
it's really difficult .. really Important
During school term I usually get 7 hour sleep and sometimes even less. I should probably sleep much more as I am rather active kind of person and pursue hard to do the best at school and spend a great deal of time learning, doing sports or other activities. I don´t know why but I can´t help it. I tried to go to bed earlier but the result was the earlier I went to bed the earlier I woke up. So it seemed to be helpless.
Probably I am already accustomed to that sleep pattern. I do not whether I suffer from sleep deprivation, but I do not always feel tired or exhausted even though I don´t sleep enough.
Although as the summer has begun, I feel much more tired than I used to. Afternoon sleep doesn´t help a lot. It´s probably a couse of the high temperatures outside.
Moreover, there is another problem. If I go to bed, like say, at 3 am, for instance because I was at the party, I will wake up in 4 hours. It seems like there is a set period of time within which I always wake up, regardless of going to sleep at 1 or 3 pm. This works also during weekends. Probably I am an early riser.
Funny storry has just crossed my mind. I am not a person who could doze off at school but this happened to my friend. He went to a high school and on the other day he came home really late and thus didn´t get enough sleep. Later that day he felt really tired and was supposed to take a test. At the examination he answered like two questions and then out of blue dozed off. Nobody around seemed to care enough to wake him up and therefore he failed the exam. Funnily, the two questions he answered were correct! :D
In my country,nearly 80% students sleep less than 8 hours a day.We usually have mountains of homework to do.Schools end at about 6pm and I hurry home to finish my tasks.I spend nearly 4.5 hours doing them every night as well as my classmates......Oh...really tiring.Somehow I've got used to it,but now I want to change.I've just graduated from junior school,and in senior school,I'll insist on studying in my own way but not to fight with the homework.
I always go to bed after 11pm and get up before 5am.I can do many things when I'm awake.haha.
Here's a confusing fact,though we feel exhausted almost every moment,we hardly fall asleep during classes or exams.We are always under a lot of pressure.
Oh, some days at my school are similar to yours :) We usually have a huge volume of work too but rather as a task to learn something than write homework. Do you manage to find some spare time for leisure time activies? What about your hobbies? It is also important to develop your skills apart school because it doesnt always offer you everything you´d like to pursue.
There was also a big change in amount of tasks as I went from primary to high school but I got used to it too.
I´ve heard that working under pressure helps achieve better results, what do you thing about it? Even though I think a sleep is very inportant for students, but life is so fast nowadays we don´t have even enought time to think about what we do, we just accustom to it and live on.
Every one of us has different hobbies and inherent abilities,while somehow they've been concealed a lot because of the form of our education.Actually,many of us don't really have enough time to develop ourselves in other ways except for school lessons,including me.I went to the USA 2 years ago.When the foreign friends asked me what my favourite activity was,I was confused.In fact I like many things like music and literature.I can write articles well but only in my own tongue,I can also play the electonic-organ but not very well.Now I love singing and reading.I can have more time to do the things I like from now on cause I know what they are.
Working under pressure is not a bad idea,so lots of people think students in our country are smart.However,the way we study is vapidity.We practise and practise,we solve a huge number of difficult maths problems,we recite a series of time and events in history,and almost everyone does the same.But what do we really get?It's hard to improve the situation in a time.I think,we have to live under pressure all the time,but that should be for what we like to pursue.If we really want to try our best and make a difference,or make contribution for the society,the pressure is good for us.
It´s very good that you know what you are good at and try to pursue it as much as you can. Stick to it.
I have many gifts I try to develop, but they take too much time. If I had to study just for school, and did not have time for anything else I might never find out about them and it would be a pity.
In my opinion, it is not so good to be focused just on school. Look at people who are not so good at learning compulsory subjects and well as a result they might feel depressed. They might try hard but it just doesn´t work as they´d like. Therefore they should have time to find other activities, hobbies which they are good at and spend time doing them and getting better at them. I do not say that school is not important but it is said it should prepare you for life. Unfortunately schools all around the world aren´t going to prepare you. I mean texts you memorize, maths problems you solve or a poem you recite. It will not solve any of your problems in the future. But on the other hand these kind of problems ought to teach you how to get hold of you life, not to give up if you fail, go after your goals and if you are not satisfied with your life, just change it. People who don´t learn this fall down and it´s harder for them to put up the pieces and get a grip on themselves.
Being good at school is not easy, I can say from my own experience. I work under pressure too from time to time, but it makes me just more nervous. I am kind of person who really applies herself and study hard and also do not take worse grades than 2.
As you said, it will not tell you how to solve world problems or improve temporary state in you country or even in the world but at least give you a bit of courage, determination and patience to go on and try again and again.
I really appreciate your mature mind:)I'm good at school work and I work very hard,too.I appreciate that kind of person who clearly knows her aims and insist on them toughly.As I comprehended your words,doing something like solving maths problems make us more patient and determined.Now I believe that if we struggle for what we are really in pursuit of,but not just live like others or follow what others do,we can learn a lot during the process of striving.We may get precious experience and qualities which are far more meaningful and important than the result itself,I think.
Thank you, that´s just a simple way I see it. :)
It´s very important to have goals and try to reach them. Kind of makes our life richer and much more meaningful.
Exactly, you comprehended it totally well. I can see that you are really reasonable :) I like the way you think.
Yea, sometimes result is not even as important as steps you take whilst getting to the finish line. They might give you many useful experiences and opportunity to learn something. But the most important thing is to be aware of failures and never give up. And also keep in mind that we can do anything we like, totally anything.
Hey, te-ufo, I sleep as the same hours like you, but opposite from you, I think that I sleep too much. Lots of my friend go to bed at 10 o'clock and wake up at 5:30 am. I'm trying to wake up early but it's so difficult. But I know, that's very important so I keep trying trying trying !
enough sleep can increase the ability to learn and help preserve the memory either the proportion of a person. Actually, I sleep less than 8 hours, has become a habit to say. Haha. Sorry,i'm new .
Hi Hakimi! Yes, I think so too. It's important to get enough sleep when you are a student. Welcome to LearnEnglish Teens, and have a look around - there are a lot of interesting things we hope you'll enjoy.
Jonathan (LearnEnglish Teens Team)
" i'am new in the website" , For me on a school night i sleep from 00h to 7h30. i find that's not mush for me so i always fall asleep at school . at the weekend i change totally my habits , i sleep from 3 to 11.
but in other days when i want to change my habits , i don't find problems at all. see you.
I sleep almost 4-5 hours everyday , i feel Exhausted sometimes , but most time ,i feel the sleep is enough to me .maybe i am become older day by day .hahah...anyway .i would like to have more day time , i have many things to do for others.
I don't get enough sleep with my my school projects and homework. I sleep at 11pm and wake up at 5am. I'm always exhausted and nothing to do about it but waiting for the summer holiday.
I need at least 8 hours of sleep. I'm not a morning type of person :P
Teachers give us too much homework, and I also have private classes after school. So i come home at 7pm, and sleep. Then I wake up at 9pm and start doing my homework. During the weeks when we have exams, i go to bed at 3 am and wake up at 7am. In the morning i drink coffee to stay awake. I don't like that school starts so early, and that teachers give us too much homework. this has already resulted on my health.
During school days, I usually sleep 6 to 7 hours, but I don't watch TV and play game a lot, I spend the majority of my time doing exercises in math and physics, however I play video games on weekends and I always spend 30 to 60 minutes in the internet.
I can sleep ALL day... I love it ;)
It doesn't matter how long do I sleep, I always feel exhausted and in the morning my whole body hurts. It feels like I haven't slept all the night before. I saw that the results are the same when I sleep 10 hours per day or 5, so I have decided not to sleep much. This way I have much more time for studying or some other activities.
I'm always tired during the school year, no matter how much do i sleep. Last summer I spent having rest and sleeping all day, next summer will be the same, I think
I think I'm not that lucky,i lived in the hostel during school days,the students there are very noisy,sad that i could sleep just after 11.30,but i need to wake up on 6.45,that's suffering for me.So that's why during the holidays i will sleep as much as i can.
Too much sleep is bad for you. You miss your friends' calls, you might miss a lot of opportunity to go to parties, to hang around and enjoy life. If you get too much sleep you will gain weight your face will look like a baby face, and get too lazy to go out for fun! Why don't we use sleep tablets instead?
5 to 8 hours
I don't sleep enough because I sleep at 22:30 and I wake up at 06:30.
I love sleeping so much, maybe because I'm a sleepy-head or maybe because I have astenia (chronic weekness and sleepiness. Anyway, I feel really feebble almost all the time
I like sleeping but not at night. I like sleeping late and waking up late. That's why I love weekends.
In the school day morning I'm so tired because I go to bed so late about 1o'clock.
So I'm really tired in the school especially on Mondays. I really hope that the school starts in 11o'clock.
I think I can study better if the school starts later.
I go to bed at 11 pm and wake up at 7 am. But I don`t have enough energy. I think I must go to bed early but I have more home work.
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