“Oh my god I’m SO tired! I only got six hours of sleep last night” one student says. “Yeah? Well I only got three hours AND I didn’t have my usual coffee this morning,” says another.

This scene is probably familiar. Too often do people make a competition out of how sleep deprived they are. While it can feel good to tell others how tired you are on a certain day, squabbling with others to see who got the least sleep minimizes the risks and consequences associated with not getting enough rest and needs to stop.

According to a 2010 study, a mere 8 percent of American high school students get the recommended amount of sleep.

There are many reasons for this including early school starts, heavy homework loads and having too many extracurriculars at once. Many high schools start obscenely early in the morning so that the buses can be used to ferry middle and elementary school kids to class later in the day. Additionally, many students have a lot to do after school, whether is be homework, extracurriculars, or both. This nasty combination of going to bed late and waking up early causes many teenagers to lose out on much-needed rest.

Although many high schoolers are affected by sleep deprivation, with proper time management, just about any student can maintain a healthy sleep schedule

Taking simple steps like doing your homework during down time in class, avoiding distractions like social media and turning off your electronics two hours before bed will all help to alleviate sleep deprivation.

Forcing yourself to make sleep a priority is another important step in being well rested. In our culture, people who stay up late to get things done are praised and are thought of as hard working or determined. Since depriving yourself of sleep is normalized, nobody really thinks twice about it. Taking a hard look at your schedule and deciding what’s actually meaningful to you will help rid your life of unnecessary time drains. Choosing sleep over that fourth extracurricular will almost always be a good decision.

Accepting you don’t have enough time to finish everything in one night isn’t shameful. Many times, homework can be finished the next day at school before you have to turn it in. Periodically taking a day off of school to reset physically and mentally can also be a good idea.

Relaxed attitudes toward sleep deprivation need to change. Everybody needs to prioritize a good night’s sleep over almost everything else so we can all focus on getting more rest.