According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics, the average 16 and 17-year-old needs 8-10 hours of sleep to function efficiently. At the very least, you have to go to bed at 11:00pm to get 8 hours of sleep if you wake up at 7:00am. These past couple of days at Boys State, you haven’t even gone back to your building until about 10:00pm; after getting back to your dorm, you have a briefing, then have to shower, work on parish songs, or do other extracurricular activities. At the end of the day, you don’t get the chance to go to bed until between 12:00 a.m. and 1:00 a.m. This leaves you with 6-7 hours of sleep a night. This could cause difficulty concentrating, sluggish feelings throughout the day, increased stress, and memory problems.
In an interview on this topic, Kayden Jones from Pearl Parish said, “I still wake up tired; however, the time we wake up is reasonable for the amount of activities we have to do. However, I think we should head back to the dorms earlier.” Michael Hicks, our newly elected lieutenant governor, stated, “I will say I’ve gotten good sleep. I did wake up late, but I was working late that night.”