It is commonly known in our society that the entire experience of high school can be stressful for students, due to the excessive amount of assigned homework and studying required to pass a course. But our society has adjusted to the sad reality of students going into high school level classes knowing that they will become a ball of stress due to the unreasonable amount of work that will be thrown on them.

Since middle school, students are told that the workload during high school will amp up tremendously, but they are not prepared for the stress and anxiety that comes along with it.

According to Los Angeles Times, “A poll of public school teachers finds that on average, high school students are assigned 3.5 hours of homework per weeknight, or more than 17 hours a week.”

3.5 hours a night? That’s almost 15% of a student’s entire day, aside from being at school for 8 hours, possibly 8 hours of sleep (10 hours is suggested), and maybe an hour or two of waking up, getting ready, and eating, leaves just 2.5 hours of free time.

Here at Lewis-Palmer, it seems like almost every student is involved with a club, sport, activity, or even a part-time job after school. These commitments not only take up multiple hours of students’ already minimized time, but energy is used up too.

Students that are involved with after school activities or that have a part time job use up their 2.5 hours of free time just tending to their responsibilities, leaving little to no time to relax and relieve stress.

On top of that, homework can take more time than 3.5 hours or personal issues can arise. In that case, sleep is the first thing to be sacrificed.

“A National Sleep Foundation panel concluded last year that adolescents need eight to ten hours of sleep a night, yet nearly two-thirds of 17-year-olds report sleeping less than seven hours a night, according to a policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 2014,” says the American Psychological Association.

If students are stressed from doing homework and staying up late to complete it, the quality of the work turned in is lower than it would be if students had less homework. A study made at Sydney University concluded that “remedial homework tends to produce marginally lower test scores compared with children who are not given the work.” Stress levels would go down and the well rested mind would be able to perform better.

“56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress,” Stanford News claims after surveying over 4,000 students from 10 high schools across the nation. “Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.”

School systems need to realize how important sleep and mental health is to young, growing teens. If homework loads could be dialed back, most of these problems such as stress, sleep deprivation, and lack of time could be solved, or at least reduced. Students would be able to spend a little time to themselves to relieve stress, instead of packing it back on everyday after school.