VOX: The Voice of Our Generation

It’s 8:00 p.m., and I’m heading to the sanctuary known as my home. I’m exhausted from doing my homework, attending club meetings, and moreover an hour-long train ride on MARTA. I decide to take a soothing shower and chow down on some spaghetti that my dad cooked. Three of my younger siblings are already fast asleep, as far as I can tell, and one has yet to come home. So, I enjoy this downtime by turning on the TV to watch “Hell’s Kitchen,” one of my favorite reality shows.

At that moment it’s 10 p.m., nothing in my mind is saying that I should go to sleep yet — even though I’m aware I have several finals to complete the next day. Before I realize it, it’s 3 a.m., and I’m still awake and watching TV. I look down to find my fingers switching the channels on the remote control, as if they were on autopilot. With my eyes half-closed, I am hypnotized by the moving shapes and colors on the screen. I know I should turn the TV off and try to get some sleep, but I can’t bring myself to do so. Part of my brain won’t let me, for fear that I might miss a good movie — and maybe also for fear that I won’t be able to sleep without it on.

It isn’t until 5 a.m. that I realize I haven’t fallen asleep. In a couple of hours, I have big tests in literature, math and chemistry. At 5:30 a.m., my clock radio alarm sounds off with Usher’s “Yeah!” booming through my speakers. It’s now time for yet another school day fighting off the sleep I should have gotten overnight. I haven’t been officially diagnosed, but I believe I suffer from insomnia.

My Lack of Sleep is Killing Me
For the past couple of years, no matter how much I force myself to try to get some sleep, my mind and body almost always reject my commands. I have tried everything, from counting sheep to closing my eyes and trying to not play through all the events of the day to listening to music to calm my nerves. The latter is the only one that ever seems to work, but it’s not guaranteed. My inability to fall asleep is slowly killing me physically, emotionally, mentally and socially. I often wake up with pains in my body and dejected about life in general. Often, I’m so exhausted I don’t want to be around others, and in school I find my thinking slower than usual. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve started to do some research on insomnia, and I was surprised to find out that many teens like me are suffering from a lack of sleep, leaving us struggling to function at school.

According to the National Sleep Foundation’s 2006 Sleep in America poll, 45 percent of teens don’t get enough sleep — less than eight hours — on school nights. And not only does the lack of sleep result in tardiness and inattention during school, the poll also found that the lack of sleep also contributes to physical, mental and emotional problems. In other words, it can be highly dangerous to our health, and I am a prime example. I usually only get a couple hours of sleep at night, and I have constant headaches, various body pains and I’m more moody than I’ve ever been.

Shuteye Strategies That Don’t Work
I am not sure exactly when I realized I had insomnia. I believe I was in the 10th grade when it dawned on me that I was having problems falling asleep. I didn’t know what to do about it, and I certainly didn’t think it was that big of a deal to ask for help.

Whenever I would climb into bed and try to fall asleep, I just couldn’t. My mind would replay the events of the day over and over again. I’d try to blank out my mind, but it just wouldn’t work.

Corny as it may sound, I started counting sheep to get my mind off the stress in my life. I have gotten up into the hundreds before I eventually gave up. I tried starting off at a slow pace and then speeding up — mainly because I’m easily bored by slow-paced activities. This actually worked against me because the more bored I am, the sleepier I get.

Lately, I’ve been trying to use TV to crowd out the thoughts that usually keep me up. But, unfortunately, it’s only gotten me more and more addicted to TV, and I keep finding better movies every night that keep me up.

I usually start off channel surfing for 10 minutes or so until something captures my attention. Mind you that the show or movie can’t just be anything — the way my mind works, it must be genuinely entertaining to hold my attention. I usually settle for music videos or, if I’m lucky, I’ll stumble across a classic film like John Singleton’s “Boyz ‘N’ Da Hood.” If I find nothing I’m interested in, I may get bored enough to fall asleep.

A Nation of Insomniac Teens
I feel bad for all the other teens out there who are suffering from a lack of sleep, but I also take some comfort in knowing that I’m not the only one with this problem. When I go to school, I see a lot of my classmates fighting to stay awake — not because they’re necessarily bored, but because they can’t help it.

The Sleep in America poll found that, at least once a week, more than 25 percent of high school students fall asleep in school, 22 percent fall asleep doing homework and 14 percent arrive late or miss school because they overslept. In the poll report, the National Sleep Foundation said that teens are ignoring experts’ advice to “wind down” with relaxing activities before bedtime, and to keep their bedrooms free of distracting technologies such as TV and computers.

To get more answers, I looked for an expert in the Atlanta area who could give me more insight into my sleeplessness, and I found Dr. David Rye, professor of neurology at Emory University and director of Emory Healthcare’s Program in Sleep. Dr. Rye told me that most teens have a different sleeping pattern that tells us to stay up at least three hours past our normal bedtimes and wants us to sleep in late — exactly the opposite of what our school schedules allow for.

He also said that my insomnia could be caused by stress, depression, sleep apnea or restless leg syndrome. The last two are probably not the cases, as they usually affect adults. Dr. Rye also told me that insomnia can be worsened by behavioral habits such as staying up late to do homework or having a job.

He and other experts also said that eating habits and bodily metabolism can help impact the type of sleep you get. I, for one, am not the healthiest eater. If I’m hungry and it is there, I’ll usually eat it no matter what and especially if it’s something sweet and chocolatey.

And there’s no doubt that I have a lot of stress in my life right now. I’m a senior working hard to get into a good college. I’m involved in a lot of activities in and out of school, and to top it off, I’m the oldest of seven kids in my family and I often have to look after my younger siblings.

How to Get More Sleep
Dr. Rye was really helpful in suggesting ways for me to get to sleep. He insisted that I start keeping a regular schedule — including going to bed at the same time every night, including weekends. I had recently started trying that, but it’s difficult to stay on track when I have so many other responsibilities at home and at school.

Dr. Rye also recommended that I look into taking prescription sleep medications such as Lunesta or Ambien to help me fall asleep. But I’m not too keen on taking pills, especially if there’s some other way to deal with my insomnia. I’m also worried that they could be addictive and cause other problems.

One method that seems to be working is to do some simple exercises before I go to bed. According to BetterSleep.com, exercising helps work out stress and relaxes the muscles. I usually do a little running, stretching and some back bends. These exercises are included in my schedule, and have helped me to go to bed and get to sleep no later than midnight, which is better compared to passing out from exhaustion at 3 or 4 a.m. The exercises are also helping me to get into a little better shape — something that counting sheep never did.

Raisa is a senior at Mays High.