How To Get a Good Night’s Sleep

“The first step is making that active decision to get more sleep,” says Alex Eichhorn, 17, a senior at Ames High School. Like many, he initially struggled with getting regular, adequate rest,  but ever since making conscious changes to his lifestyle, he’s seen drastic improvements in his physical health and mental well-being. “Every waking moment of your day is colored by the quality of sleep you got the night before.” Since his first-hand experience with its benefits, Eichhorn has made it his mission to teach his peers how they can experience them too. 

Though most teens are aware of the benefits of a good night’s sleep, many find it difficult to make enough time in their busy schedules to focus on rest and relaxation. Others may have the time, but end up scrolling endlessly through social media apps like Instagram or TikTok. Eichhorn has found that the best way to combat this is to sleep earlier than you think you have to. “You might stay up, thinking you still have time to get 8 hours, 7 hours, 6 hours. What you should do is to just sleep as soon as you can, without counting down the hours.”

If you truly are too busy to go to bed at a reasonable time, Eichhorn recommends reconsidering your priorities. “Sleep is probably the best way you can spend your time,” says Eichhorn, who decided to spend less time on Boy Scouts and studying in order to get better sleep. “You might want to look at the ways you spend your time and choose which are most valuable to you. Not only will you get more sleep, you’ll be able to better focus on the things that mean the most.

All of the above is helpful and important, but none of it matters in the absence of one simple, yet crucial, step.“The most important thing is to believe in yourself.” Eichhorn has found that the biggest barrier to getting sleep is believing that you can be someone who gets enough sleep. “So many of us have resigned ourselves to being second class sleep citizens. But an important step in accomplishing anything is telling yourself that you can improve. If you think you can’t, then you won’t.”

Meaningful Personal Experience

Hickory Park – Loud, raucous, incredibly American. TVs surrounded my family and me as the New England Patriots and Tom Brady took the field for Super Bowl LI against the Atlanta Falcons. The Patriots – the Evil Empire for so long that to me the paradigm had shifted. While the public, my friends, and seemingly everyone outside of Massachusetts was rooting against them, to me they had become an underdog. I hadn’t forgotten the sham that was Deflategate two years ago, nor the four-game suspension Brady took as a result. I hadn’t forgotten the magical ending of that year’s Super Bowl either – to me so fitting after the tribulations they had faced throughout the year. To me, Brady’s story was the ultimate story of an underdog – constantly overlooked, having to prove himself year in and year out. 

Despite all of that, it seemed like I was the only one in my small Iowa town rooting against the Falcons. And when the game kicked off, and Atlanta drove down the field to score a touchdown, the room exploded with celebration. When they scored again, celebration followed, with more cheering and chanting. When Brady threw the pick-six to make it 21-3, I could see the game falling apart. Brady was going to lose, I was going to lose, and in my mind, America was going to lose. Up until that point in my life, I had always believed that hard work, the constant grind, would always be able to overcome talent and circumstance. Even if the odds were against you, even if the entire world was against you, it still didn’t matter where you came from – whether you were a 6th-round pick who had to fight your way into a starting position in the NFL, or if you, like my parents, immigrated to the United States to fight for an education and a better life for your family. If you put in the work, good things would follow. So when the Patriots went into the half down 21-3, I could see my entire worldview falling to pieces. But we know how the game ended. The Patriots, down 28-3 with half of the 3rd quarter remaining, drove down the field. 28-9. 28-12. 28-20 and then the Julian Edelman catch over the middle, desperately holding on the the football as defenders surrounded him, me desperately holding on to the American Dream. 28-26 and the two-point conversion to tie the game. And when James White punched it in and I heard Joe Buck’s exclamation: “Patriots win the Super Bowl! Brady has his fifth! What a comeback!”, I felt validated. Not only on the result of the game, of course, but also in my belief that incredible odds were only there to be overcome. As Brady overcame his circumstances to make it in the NFL, I resolved I would make the best of mine.

What High School is Like in 2023

There are a lot of things that could describe high school. Stressful, fun, chaotic, and charming are just some of the many distinct and sometimes contradictory words that come to mind when I think about going to school every day. There are so many different kinds of people – some are similar to me, with so many shared interests that it’s almost eerie, and others so different I wonder how we end up walking the same halls every weekday. Multiply those thoughts a thousandfold, and I think I begin to understand what makes high school, especially in 2023, make so many different adjectives pop up in my mind. It’s the sheer variety of different people and ideas – yet all in the same institute of learning, with more or less the same mundane goal – to get through high school while maybe learning something along the way. This makes each and every moment special and unique, even at times when it seems like nothing could be more boring. Each class, each passing period, is different due to the sheer amount of people and their sheer amount of differences. 

All of these unique cultures and personalities swirl together, directed towards a common destination by the fact that they all share a home Monday through Friday. High school takes people’s uniqueness and celebrates it – most have a place where they feel comfortable and accepted – but also introduces that uniqueness to the uniqueness of others. When that happens, both uniquenesses become more aware of their own uniqueness, more aware of how they fit into the larger world, and more aware of how everyone’s uniqueness helps make the world a vibrant place. These varieties of paints make up this high school painting – it’s why high school in 2023 is so polarizing. Because with so many different colors mixing, clashing, and harmonizing together, how could it be anything else?