Sleep disorders plague Peninsula students
They go to school during the weekdays, participate in sports, and carve out time for a social life. Many other Panthers complain about the lack of sleep due to busy schedules, but senior Maika Koehl, senior Ryan Watanabe, and senior Deborah Weltman are, in addition to everything else that a typical teenager goes through, plagued during the night with health conditions that prevent them from enjoying a good night’s sleep.
Koehl suffers from sleep paralysis frequently, in which the body is unconscious while the mind is still awake.
“It’s such a scary feeling, because you wake up in the middle of nowhere and you just can’t move,” Koehl said. “Sometimes I hallucinate that there are horrible shadowy people watching me in my room and I hear screaming.”
Koehl’s disorder has never physically harmed her, but with school and outside activities, sleep paralysis puts a strain on her daily life.
“I’m definitely tired during the day because I’m afraid to fall asleep sometimes,” Koehl said. “But recently, everything has been okay. You just need to stay calm during sleep paralysis and let it happen.”
Watanabe also suffers from a disorder that increases exhaustion during the day. Sleeplessness is a case in which people are unable to fall asleep, and in Watanabe’s instance, his mind repeats memories from the past and is constantly stimulated.
“I can’t go to sleep because my mind won’t essentially ‘turn off’ and go to sleep mode for a few hours longer than most people,” Watanabe said.
Despite the red eyes that his condition may bring him, Watanabe has grown “so used to it” that his body does not experience the exhaustion that it used to.
Similar to Watanabe’s condition, Weltman experiences insomnia, a sleeping disorder that prevents her from getting the sleep her body needs, even after she has finished her tasks for the day. While she may feel more awake at night than the typical student, she feels the effects the morning after.
“I sometimes am fine [in] the morning, then break down throughout the day,” Weltman said. “Mostly I wake up with stinging eyes and feeling weighed down [and] groggy.”
Even worse, insomnia does not differentiate weekdays and weekends. During the weekdays, sports and classes suffer as a result of the sleeplessness she experiences the night before.
“It’s a lot more difficult to practice track and I am more moody,” Weltman said. “Sometimes I am able to keep going, [but] some days, I sleep through my classes.”
Despite the negative effects of insomnia, Weltman looks on a bright side to cope with her disorder.
“I will wake up the next day and find some work that I don’t remember doing,” Weltman said. “It’s pretty nice in that way.”
All three of these students have learned to live with their sleeping disorders, all the while managing their academic and social lives.
