Against a black background, the image of a digital clock blurs, its glowing numbers coming into focus a split second before the numbers flash to 2 a.m. It’s a sight students are beginning to experience more and more frequently these days. With the hectic schedule that comes with high school, students are finding themselves precariously balancing their time between their studies, sleep, and a social life, and unfortunately, more often than not, sleep is sacrificed in an attempt to salvage the others.

 Senior Carolina Chung is one of many seniors this year who is sleeping less and less each night in order to have the time to get their work done.

 “When I go to sleep fluctuates, but it’s always sometime between midnight and 5 a.m.,” said Chung, “Sometimes I dont even go to bed.”

 When Chung goes to bed at night depends solely on the amount of work that is due the next day. For her easier classes, she tends to go to bed early, but if she has a harder class the next day, like AP Comparative Government, she will often stay awake well into the early hours of the morning. On occasion she has even resorted to drinking coffee in order to keep herself awake at night.

 “I drink [coffee] at night because I need to stay awake. Plus it keeps me warm because at night it’s kind of cold, but if I use a blanket then I am going to fall asleep,” said Chung.

 While not as many students have to resort to such drastic cutbacks on their sleep, students like sophomore Arthur Wang do occasionally find themselves burning the midnight oil on certain nights like before a big test.

 “I [pulled an all nighter] twice in one year, for the midterm and final,” said Wang.

 Along with school work, after school sports and clubs, which often require students to stay after school for a few hours, can also cause students to stay up later at night.

 “When I have sports going on I usually go to bed at 11 p.m. or 12 p.m., at the earliest,” said junior Sarah Adam.

  However, not all students are feeling the same effect from their schoolwork on their sleeping patterns. Few freshman are familiar with the overwhelming pressure that comes with AP classes and seldom find themselves being deprived sleep. Freshman Cassie Van Gorder, for example, rarely finds herself going to bed past ten.

 “The latest I’ve stayed up is midnight because I had a project due,” said Van Gorder.

 Although many students consider staying up late studying to be the only plausible solution to managing their course load, a lack of sleep may actually be the main factor in causing student’s grades to slip. When exposed to an overly stressed environment, the adrenal glands, the glands above your kidneys that releases stress hormones, tend to become overused. Without the sleep necessary to allow the body a chance to rest and repair itself, side effects occur as a result. Fatigue, anxiety, and decreased concentration can follow a late night and cause students to have difficulty focusing long enough to benefit from their classes. Not only will this keep students from learning during class, but these side effects may actually keep students from class entirely when they are forced to go to the Nurse’s office as a result.

 “I’d say on average I see ten kids a week who just really need to sleep,” said Nurse Caire Fessler.

 While most of the time students can function again after a quick cat nap on one of the nurse’s cots, it is not always as simple for other students who come to the nurse as a result of physically nauseous. According to Fessler, this occurs when students are sleep deprived enough that acid begins to build up in their stomach. When this happens she often is forced to send students home for the day. However, if student’s parents do not give them permission to be sent home or if all of the cots are occupied then Fessler has no choice but to send students back to class without any relief from the burden of their fatigue.

 “There is not an illness,” said Fessler, “they are just exhausted.”