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How does the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program affect teenagers’ sleep? Relationship between IBDP programmes and teenagers’ sleeping time and patterns.

International Baccalaureate Diploma program is internationally accepted qualification education programmes. It aims to develop students who have excellent breadth and depth of knowledge: students who flourish physically, intellectually, emotionally and ethically.

IB students are required to do formative and summative assessments, internal assessments which are essay tasks with different word limitations in each 6 subjects. Also, full IB diploma students must complete Theory of Knowledge, Extended Essay, CAS program to get a diploma. As can be seen from the explanation above, IB is a programme that needs to spare a lot of time. A trend that is seen in high school, particularly among juniors and seniors, is lack of sleep.

Pictures above show the exhaustion and overwhelming amount of work that is put on students, especially seniors who are in their second year of IB and preparing for mock and final exams in the next semester. Charlotte Lee, a senior who takes the full IB program, mentioned “I think I’ve definitely developed a bad sleep schedule since the start of IB. Generally, my bedtime became two-three hours later than that in sophomore year. I know that having a bad sleep schedule is bad because it affects hormone levels, general health, academic performance, etc., but it is still hard to develop a healthy schedule again because there is a lot of work I have to get done.” Similarly, Nicha Sapsarasin, another senior, says, “I think that the amount of tests and papers due in the same week is concerning, and pushing my sleep schedule to be very late. I understand that test schedules are mostly uncontrollable, but there should be a way to make it more manageable for students' physical and mental health.” These opinions are common in students who do not take the full IB as well. Senior, Gavin Viseskosin, takes the IB certificate and says “I feel like I get less sleep probably due to the IB workload. Before IB started I felt like I was freer to do other things such as playing sports, video games, etc. The IB program has its own pros and cons though but overall I sleep less due to the sheer workload the IB puts on me.”

The class of 2024 who are in their first year of IB classes are also already feeling a significant decrease in their amount and quality of sleep. Sohyun Kim, a junior taking the IB Certificate course, mentioned, “Even though I am not a full IB diploma student, after I started IB, my bedtime was delayed from 11 pm to 2 am and this affected my condition the following day a lot.” Sung Lee, junior who takes the full IB diploma attests to this as well: “For students living downtown, IB full diploma is a very harsh educational program. Since I started IB, my average sleep time has decreased by about three hours, and I have dark circles that I didn't have before. The health issue that makes me worry about is muscle loss, which is caused by less physical activity and less sleep due to lack of time during taking IB courses.” It seems that juniors are struggling with time management and finding a balance between academics and personal time.

IB is known to be a rigorous course, and it is almost inevitable for students to get an adequate amount of sleep, especially during exam season. However, working late can decrease productivity, and sleep deprivation can ultimately damage a student’s concentration the following school day. Students are working past midnight which increases the quantity of time that they study, however, it decreases the quality of their work. It is important for students to focus on the quality of their work, instead of the quantity, and productively manage their time.

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