Kate Russel is a sophomore in high school. She enjoys soccer and does well in school. She spends time on work and prioritizing sleep, but it wasn’t always this way. According to Kate, she always just felt really tired. But It took a turn for the worse last year. She really struggled to even stay awake in classes. She really struggled in classes where she felt less interest or motivation. Specifically, in her English class. The classroom was always dark and quiet, and it didn’t help that her English class was early in the morning. It really wasn’t ideal when she would fall asleep because she would miss important information in class.
Kate wouldn’t get much sleep in general. She would have to stay up late because of schoolwork and sports. Kate got into this endless cycle of going to sports, then staying up late to do homework, and then having to get up early for school. Once she got in that loop it got really hard to get out of it. This definitely wasn’t ideal for the school day.

When at school she would get super tired mid-day. This would lead to lack of concentration and motivation. It made it really hard for her to pay attention at school. By the time she had gotten home she would be so tired, that she would end up just procrastinating the work until the last minute. This was especially hard in the winter months.

Another factor was that her school was literally downtown. After staying up late, she would have to get up early like around 6:30 just to rush to get to school. She would constantly be getting almost no sleep. The average teenager needs about 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night to function properly according to Better Health Channel. Kate most definitely was not getting that.

Kate finally came to the conclusion that maybe she should be getting more sleep. She felt that it wasn’t good that she was “ falling asleep in all classes.” This year she really wanted to be better when she came to a new school. She realized that she didn’t want to have the same experience this year. So she decided to prioritize sleep a lot more. She made an effort to go to sleep at a certain time every night. For her homework, she started to go somewhere immediately after school to try and get it done. She would often go to Starbucks and wouldn’t leave till she knocked out all her work. She realized that she would be most successful if she just forced herself to go and get it done.

On the nights where Kate still couldn’t get good sleep she would wonder why. She ended up finding different reasons that kind of caused her to still be tired.  She would make sure sleep was important and started to construct more time for school work and also to organize her life.

It was a long and hard journey for her, it’s not always easy trying to fix an ongoing issue, especially because it was a situation where she already had a very structured life. But she managed to pull through and do better. Not only did it benefit her academically but also mentally!

In Kate’s words, coming away from sleep deprivation “changed” her. Not only is Kate more conscious, but she’s really happy. She feels like she can be more in tune with what’s going on around her. She has better focus and just honestly feels better as a person. 

Kate’s grades have also come up immensely. She was able to stop being tired and start putting in the work. Now Kate does well in school and really enjoys being here. And most importantly being able to live in the moment.

Kate has been more able to balance out her life in general. If it weren’t for that “come to action” last year she probably would be struggling way more. She feels that in general, she has improved as not only a student, but also as a person in general.

Long story short, prioritize your sleep. Sleep is super important to your health and wellbeing. If you don’t get enough sleep, you may lose motivation. By prioritizing sleep, you can really improve your lifestyle, and your life.