Sleep deprived teens

In one of the breakout sessions at the conference I recently attended, I learned some interesting facts that helped explain why some teenagers are the way they are. According to Dr.Laurence Martel,President of the National Academy of Integrative Learning, Inc. most teenagers are sleep deprived. They actually need 9 hrs. and 15 mins of sleep everyday for the brain to fully function at its highest potential. Most students only have 4-5 hrs. of sleep. In my three classes I only have a handful of students who actually has 8 or more hours of sleep. Now, that can be a challenge to us teachers. We really have to make our classes really interesting and fun less we see them getting their needed sleep from our classes.