s especially affected the lives of teenagers. CNN identified lack of sleep as America's top health problem in 1997. Sleep deprivation has many affects on the health, memory, performance, motivation, and overall mood of a person. We need much more sleep than we get as Americans. According to Mary Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry addressing human behavior at Brown University and director of chronobiology and sleep research at East Bradley Hospital in Providence R.I., teens are getting about seven-and –a-half hours a night's sleep on school nights. This was an interesting discovery, but not entirely surprising, because we see teens in the schools, falling asleep in class.
             I know that this is a personal connection to me. On average, I think that I probably get about six- and a half hours of sleep on a school night. I sometimes find myself extremely tired the next day. Personally, I do not feel motivated the next morning and I drag the entire day. I believe that I speak for many students across the nation, when I say, " I need more sleep!"
             There must be some effective way for adolescents to get more sleep. For each person there may be different causes for their sleep deprivation. Some of these causes are insomnia, sleep apnea, narcolepsy, and even just getting to bed late or waking up too early. There are, however, things that can be done about this problem.
             First, we need to find out why sleep is so important and why we all need certain amounts of it. Actually, there is no definite reason that we need sleep, because it is still being researched. However, many reports have found that it is simply an opportunity for your body to relax and renew itself (Aragon, 2002).
             In a laboratory study, it was discovered that if they were given the opportunity to sleep as long as they wanted and wake up naturally, sixteen-year-olds tend to sleep between ten and eleven hours (Dement, 1972). Howe...