It’s not easy being a High School student. It’s bad enough that you’re being overloaded with tons of homework and at the same time wondering how to motivate yourself to study. Moreover, you have to juggle your school work with chores at home, extracurricular activities, and having some fun time with friends.
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Certainly, it is no wonder that you’re always feeling tired.
This tiredness prevents you from becoming productive.
It takes considerable effort to get out of bed, even with the use of an alarm clock.
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For instance, you are yawning all the time in classes, sometimes falling asleep in the middle of a lesson. You want to study for that test, but you are always nodding your head while reading your textbook.
In addition, you may have the motivation to do well in school, but the overall lack of energy is stopping you from excelling in class.
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Now before you rush off to your doctor, thinking that you might have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID), let us first do a simple check of your daily habits. In most cases, these constant feelings of tiredness can be remedied by making a switch to healthier habits.
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REASON NO. 1: You are not getting quality sleep.
For instance, when you are feeling tired. The most obvious reason that you should look into first is the possibility that you are not getting quality sleep.
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According to the National Sleep Foundation, teenagers require seven to nine hours of sleep per day. Of course, with the volume of school work that you need to do, more likely you are getting around five to six hours of sleep at night. To make up for the missing hours of sleep, you try to get short naps during lunch break or when you get home before starting on your homework. However, as you already know by now, even if you do fill up that required quota of sleep hours, you still feel tired and sleepy.
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The problem here is not the quantity of sleep hours, but the quality of your sleep itself. This has something to do with the sleep cycle. I’d rather not go into the scientific aspects of the sleep cycle, so let’s just keep it simple.
A human’s sleeping pattern has been programmed to be in sync with the cycle of daytime and nighttime hours. This means that when the sun is rising you wake up and when the sun has set you go to sleep.
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Now, with your very busy school schedule, you started using an alarm clock to wake you up. But here’s the thing. More often than not, you are not aware of the fact that you are setting your alarm clock right smack in the middle of your sleep cycle (especially when you should be in deep sleep. When this happens, your sleep gets disrupted and you wake up like a zombie. Worse, you go through your day feeling very tired and sleepy, as if you have not had a good night’s sleep at all.
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SOLUTION:
The obvious solution is that you should ensure that you should be able to complete a full sleep cycle. While on average the sleep cycle is 90 minutes long, even with the use of apps like sleepyt.ime, you may find that your cycle may require an additional 30 minutes of sleep or, conversely, less than that.
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What you need to do is to determine when you wake up naturally. You can do this during school break or on school days when you have very little homework to do. Take note of the time that you go to sleep and the time that you wake up. Do this procedure for a full week. This way, you will be able to determine, more or less, the length of your sleep cycle. Once things get busy for you in school, use your alarm clock as a backup, setting it to the time that you normally wake up.
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You may need to make adjustments in your pre-sleep habits. If you want to get enough good quality sleep, try going to bed earlier than usual so that you wake up before the alarm goes off. To do this, finish all your homework in school so you don’t have to work on them at home. Turn off your computer and/or cellphones and hit your bed earlier.
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REASON NO. 2: You are not getting enough exercise and sunlight.
Okay, admittedly, it’s already exhausting to be in school. You may even reason that you don’t need the exercise, that the exercise you’re getting in your Physical Education classes is enough.
The problem is that many Phys Ed classes are now being conducted in covered gyms. If these classes take place outdoors, they are often scheduled in the afternoons when you are not able to get the full health benefits from the sun.
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Why is sunlight so important? Sunlight is the body’s primary source of Vitamin D, which is vital for overall healthy and immunity. It is also important in preventing fatigue. In fact, a 2014 study revealed that there is a high correlation between fatigue and Vitamin D deficiency. In addition, symptoms of fatigue in the patients who took part in the study were relieved when their Vitamin D levels were brought back to normal.
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Now, if you think that you can get your Vitamin D from the food you eat, you are wrong. According to Mark Sisson, author of The Primal Blueprint, you only get 300 IUs of Vitamin D from your daily diet. In comparison, exposure to sunlight for 15 to 20 minutes will give you a whopping 4,000 IUs of Vitamin D.
Going back to exercise, it was reported in the New York Times that exercise can help boost energy levels so that you lose those feelings of tiredness.
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SOLUTION:
When you’re feeling tired all the time, you can get that much needed energy boost by getting your daily exposure to sunlight and exercise. You don’t need to hit the gyms and lift weights. Instead, do low intensity exercises, like simple walking, for 15 minutes in the early morning or after 3 pm. You don’t even have to do this daily. According to a 2008 study conducted by the University of Georgia, you only need to do low intensity exercises of 20 minutes duration just three times a week. Doctors also recommend avoiding sunlight exposure between 10 am to 3 pm as this is the peak period for UV ray emission, which may cause cancer. It is not advisable to exercise during this period outdoors because of the intensity of UV exposure. During winter, you can ask your doctor if you need to take Vitamin D supplements.
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PROBLEM NO. 3: You may be drinking too much coffee/caffeine.
Health experts have been praising the many benefits that can be derived from drinking coffee. But coffee, containing the stimulant caffeine, may be disrupting the quality of your sleep.
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How does caffeine work on the body? Your brain and body have adenosine receptors. It is adenosine that sends signals to the brain that you’re tired and that you need to sleep. Caffeine works by mimicking adenosine. As it binds with the receptors, it blocks the sleep signals so that you remain awake. The problem is that as the caffeine is distributed throughout your body, the accumulated adenosine floods in. It then results to that caffeine “crash” wherein you are extremely tired and lethargic. As drinking coffee becomes a habit or, worse, an addiction for you, your body creates more adenosine receptors. As a result, you need to drink more coffee to stay awake and alert, but you are more prone to fatigue and exhaustion.
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SOLUTION:
The only solution to this problem is to wean you off from your caffeine intake. Make the switch to tea, which has lower caffeine content. There are flavorful varieties, such as loose leaf tea. Other great tea options include Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast.
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If you’ve really got a caffeine addiction, make use of Habitica and other habit tracking apps. It can help you during the weaning process and provide you with extra motivation.
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Drink more water. Fatigue and lower energy levels may be due to mild dehydration. Have a water bottle with you at all times to keep your body hydrated.
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In Conclusion
Our discussion above can be summarized simply by living a healthy lifestyle. Eat and drink healthy, exercise, and get lots of healthy sunlight.
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However, there is one more thing that I need to add. The problem with school is that the heavy study load forces you to prioritize getting good grades over your health. Some students may also have after-school jobs to meet expenses.
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While it is a good goal to excel in school, it should never be at the expense of your health. If you have been working too hard, sleeping late hours, or drinking too much coffee to stay awake and energetic, reduce your study load or make adjustments in your schedule so that you can accommodate just a few minutes of exercise in the sun. This way, you will not only rejuvenate your body, but also improve your health overall. Now you have learned how to motivate yourself to study, you’re on your way to excel as a student.