Do We Get Enough Sleep in This Country ?

By Tizeta Girma

Have you seen a lot of students having problems with their sleeping time coming to class late and sleeping in the class when the teacher is teaching? Why don't we have much time to sleep?

According to the book Sleep Thieves a person should have at least eight hours of sleep in a day. Maybe some people from the United States think sleeping is wasting time. But people who come from other countries have different ways of thinking about sleeping and rest.

In the U.S there are many different things that can change our sleeping habits. We do so many things here that we wouldn't do back home. In this country there are so many activities. We have different activities after school. We play different sports. We enjoy clubs. We do our homework, go to church, and we do many other things. Also we see that there are many students that are working and at the same time they go to night school. So if we do all these things, do we have time to sleep a good sleep?

TG is a junior at Blair High School who is from Ethiopia. She has been in this country for two and a half years. TG has more things to do in the U.S than in her native country. "I sometimes work for four or five days a week after school. It was so hard for me the first time but it has become better after a while," she said. " I am doing these because I have to help my family and I need money for my school. That's why I am working so hard."

For TG, being so busy started when she came to the United States. "In my country I didn't do a lot of things. I never worked after school so I always had a time to sleep and help my family with cleaning and cooking our food. I also visited my friends and did my home work on time," she said.

According to health teacher Mrs. Susan Soulé, not getting enough sleep can cause many problems. Some of the problems include lack of concentration and irritability. She also said that not having enough sleep causes low energy and lowers our ability to fight off illness. "[Students] became ill more often and fall asleep during class," she said.

To solve these problems, Mrs. Susan Soule said, "Students have to plan what they are going to do and do their homework on time and go to bed on time."

