Getting Sleep

It's a biological need that the human race constantly takes for granted. No one thinks about it much even though our entire day basically depends on it. That necessity, of course, is sleep. I can basically get everything else I need but sleep is the one thing that constantly eludes my grasp. Breakfast? Check. Constant water drinks throughout the day? Check. Eight hours of sleep? Eh, not so much. Sleep basically recharges our brain and even helps us remember stuff yet people, myself included, constantly put it on the backburner.

Of course, sleep is hard to obtain for anyone who goes to high school. In our district, high schoolers are the first ones to go to school. We need just as much sleep as any kid in elementary school technically but we just aren't the ones who get super grumpy when we don't get enough of it. So, of course, sleep is that thing we all long for and are never able to get. At fourteen, I am already forced to put concealer under my eyes to hide the dark circles under them and I am sure I am not alone.

Time is sleep's enemy and it's people's too. When you have to deal with homework, after-school activities, stress and all the things we love to do in our free time, it's difficult to get it in. It's easy to just admit I need more sleep but the true question is how. Time, as well as sleep, is something that I can't get enough of and the need for it often wins out in the end.

Another problem that teenagers have is their penchant for staying up late. According to my psychiatrist, my problems with falling asleep are not simply due to my being a teenager but with my GAD. I must be utterly exhausted for me to fall asleep successfully, which is why on weekends I stay up until as long as I possibly can. Sometimes, my worries cause me to stay up much longer than I should and I am left tossing and turning in my bed.

This means that the weekend serves as my time to catch up on my sleep. Both days this weekend I ended up staying asleep until eleven in the morning. I actually even suddenly fell asleep as I was reading my magazine and I woke up a few hours later to find the light on and the magazine across my chest. Being as I was stressed out all week, that could have been enough to get me down. I was also warned that sleepiness might be a result of my anxiety meds, which might also be a probable cause.

Apparently, too much sleep makes a person equally as tired as not having enough sleep. This is something I can definitely believe, being as I was super-tired out on the ice rink today. Instead of having my usual energy, I started out tired and sluggish from the start. By the end, I was too tired to function properly and I was stumbling on of the ice rink.

I might be better but I must say that I had a difficult time at it today. Even now, I feel incredibly sleepy.

Sleep is definitely that I need more of and yet am unable to have enough of. I know that my sleep schedule is unhealthy and I wish so badly to change it. However, being as I have three and a half more years of high school left to go, I doubt that will happen.