Many have heard the tale of Rip Van Winkle, a creation of author Washington Irving, who slept for 20 years. While years may be a ridiculous amount of time, imagine sleeping for 20 hours; for most, this notion could be considered equally absurd. When the figure dwindles down to fewer than seven, a number of students begin to relate.

The problem causes more traffic accidents than any other impairment, hinders one’s reading ability and is a contributing factor to lower grades in school. Sleep deprivation torments those of us unlucky enough to be either too busy to sleep or find sleep too difficult to procure.

The average American student gets fewer than seven hours of sleep nightly. This figure, aside from late bed times, is mainly caused by the early starting bells of schools across the United States.

Sports, part-time jobs and other extracurricular activities accompanied by heavy homework loads constantly reduce the average amount of sleep that teens receive.

A perfect example of such a situation is that of senior Kristen Ploetze. She said, “I try to go to sleep early, but I have a lot to do, and now I have to get up even earlier to shoot basketball before school so I don’t get that much sleep. I usually want to pass out by third hour.”

Some students’ sleep patterns do not seem to be affected adversely by the school’s early schedule. Freshman Jonathan Nauser said, “My mom tells me to go to bed at 9:30, but I fall asleep at 10 p.m. At 6, I open my eyes but I don’t wake up. I wake up at 8 a.m.” While he may be getting close to the recommended amount of sleep for adolescents, Jonathan finds that his overall attitude is altered by waking up too early. “No, I don’t think teens get enough sleep, and it’s like my mom says, ‘tough.’ I’m usually tired and in a bad mood.”

Our tendencies to “toss and turn” during the first moments of rest may not be a product of an uncomfortable sleeping surface or mere restlessness; our bodies may not be ready to sleep so early in the night. In teenagers, research has shown that the level of the chemical that controls sleep, melatonin, naturally rises later at night than in most children and adults.

Online advice in the area of “getting enough rest” is readily available to everyone. One such site, netdoctor.co.uk, features comments from Dr. Adrian Williams, consultant physician at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London. An avid believer in naps, Williams suggests that if a full night’s sleep is not possible, one should attempt to put aside time in the afternoon for a small nap to fill the deficit.

While getting eight or nine hours of sleep may be merely an ideal unreasonable for countless students, it is feasible that the problem many students’ grades face isn’t lack of studying. In fact, pulling an “all-nighter” may hurt scores on whatever was being studied for in the first place, merely from impaired concentration due to sleep deprivation.