Sleeping!!! This may be a topic that you and your parents may argue about because you don’t want to sleep (and you don’t want to wake up either). You may think that is a waste of time to go to sleep and rather spend that time to watch TV, play video games or read an interesting book. If you were to stay up for 24 hours, you would probably not make it. I will tell you why.

Our bodies need time to rest. It is the time when our body can refuel the energy it needs for the next day. Sleeping plays the role of the good health and well-being throughout our life. Our brains need time to function. When we don’t get enough sleep, we may feel tire, exhausted and even have a headache. We will not be able to work or do school work probably too.

When can lack of enough sleep affect our daily lives? It will affect how well you think, react to small things, work, learn, and get along with other people. When I don’t get enough sleep I can’t work properly. I need a certain amount of sleep to be able to wake up and go to school. Children grades can drop down because of not getting enough sleep. I know a lot of people don’t go to sleep at the right time. I for one (most of the time) go to sleep as earlier as 9pm because I know what it is like to not get enough sleep.

How long can Watoto’s sleep? This is what I found out in my research online:

  • Age 1 to 3 years: sleep for 12 to 14 hours
  • Age 3 to 5 years: sleep for 11 to 13 hours
  • Age 5 to 12 years: sleep for 10 to 11 hours
  • Age 12 to 18 years: sleep for 8.5 to 9.5 hours

The major effects of poor sleep among children and adolescents are:

  • Behavior problems
  • Impaired learning and school performance
  • Mood and emotion problems, and
  • Worse health including obesity.

Getting enough sleep is not a joke. You must take care of yourself and be proactive and do what is right. I take sleeping serious and I go to sleep from 9pm to 7am, which most of you Watoto’s should do. Look at the bright side of it to, you can only dream when you are asleep, I like my dreams and I try to go to sleep as soon as it is time to sleep so that I can dream and complete my dreams before 7am. What I dream about…? Let’s leave this to be a blog topic of another Monday.

Sleep is a wonderful thing so love it!

Angela-Acaye.