High School Video Contest

Teens in the U.S. are invited to enter the 2025 AASM “Sleep for Success” High School Video Contest. Entrants will compete for a cash prize and raise awareness about the importance of healthy sleep for teens’ success in life. High school students can enter the contest by submitting an original video that is 30 to 90 seconds long to help teens understand the importance of prioritizing sleep to improve their academic and athletic performance, enhance their physical and mental health, and set themselves up for long-term success.

Along with a balanced diet and regular exercise, sleep is one of the pillars of a healthy lifestyle. Sleep works for you by improving your health, well-being, and mood. Sleep helps you perform your best at school. When you get good sleep, your memory is sharper, and you think more clearly and creatively. Sleep also energizes you for peak performance in sports, making you faster, stronger, and more accurate. Finally, sleep keeps you safe by helping you avoid motor vehicle accidents caused by drowsy driving.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that teens between 13 and 18 years of age should sleep 8 to 10 hours per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health. However, CDC data show that 7 out of 10 high school students (77.3%) do not get enough sleep on school nights. This percentage has increased significantly since 2009. Social and cultural factors, as well as the advent of technology, all have collided with the biology of adolescents to prevent teens from getting enough sleep. Technology usage at night, including screen-based media, late-night binge watching, and social media use, along with other factors such as early school start times, prevent teens from getting the sufficient sleep they need. Chronic sleep loss also can influence teens’ decision-making, putting personal and public safety at risk.

Entry Period:

The 2025 AASM “Sleep for Success” High School Video Contest entry period opens Monday, Jan.  27, 2025, and closes on Wednesday, March 5, at 5 p.m. EST.

Prizes:

Each winner will receive $750; the teacher associated with the entry will win a $100 gift card.

Eligibility:

The Contest is open to any individual who is 13 years of age or older and is enrolled in a high school in the United States at the time of entry. (U.S. high school students who are home-schooled are also eligible to enter. High school students who attend a Department of Defense school also are eligible for the contest, even if the school is in another country.) No purchase of any sort is necessary, and there is no entry fee.  

Each submission must be the primary work of one individual (the “Entrant”). Please note that the system does not allow group submission. You may work alone, with a partner or in a group, but you may submit only one entry. When multiple students collaborate on the submission, one student must submit the work (the “Entrant”). If the entry should be selected as a winner, recognition is given to the Entrant and teacher associated with the entry. 

Submission Disclaimer:

By submitting your work, you are acknowledging the following:

• The submission is your own creation, and it has not been borrowed from any other person’s work (including film, video, and online content).
• While assistance from artificial intelligence (AI) tools or software is permitted, the characters and situations are of your own invention.
• Submissions should have teens as their main characters and be about the teen experience. 

Submission Instructions:

After posting your video on YouTube, Instagram or TikTok with the hashtag #SleepforSuccess2025, you must submit to the AASM a public link to the video along with a completed entry form. If submitting via Instagram or TikTok, submissions must tag the AASM account (@aasm_sleeped). All contest winners will also be asked for an MP4 file of their video.

Please note that the entry form required for submission is not yet available. It will go live on January 27th, 2025, the official issue date.

Submission Categories:

A winner will be selected in each of the following categories and should focus on one of these areas:

Category 1 – Personal Perspective
Tell us what a good sleep schedule means to you and how healthy sleep plays a role in some aspect of your life.

Category 2 – Advocacy
Share a well-articulated idea or argument to educate and urge policy makers to prioritize teen sleep to enhance public safety or teen health.

Category 3 – PSA
Create a public service announcement (PSA) encouraging your peers to pay attention to their sleep schedules and prioritize sleep to promote physical and mental wellness. 

Submission Criteria:

• Runtime: Video submissions must be 30 to 90 seconds long, including any credits.
• Message: The video must help teens understand why sleep is important to their success either in school, health, safety, sports, relationships, or another area. The video should focus on one aspect of a teens’ life.
• Style: Submissions can be in any style or genre, including animation, drama, comedy, musical, or documentary.

Judging Criteria

Contest judges will review all submissions to verify contest rules are met. Each video will be scored, and the winner of each of the three categories will be chosen, using the following criteria:

Scientific context and accuracy
The submission seeks to understand the science behind a good night’s sleep and connects content to existing scientific knowledge.  You are required to cite your sources on your video submission form.

Relevance
The submission has a clear articulation of why adequate sleep matters and how it has an impact on teens’ lives, their communities, or the world.

Engagement
The submission thoughtfully presents information and grabs the audience’s attention. There is a personal connection to the chosen topic.

Creativity
The submission approaches the topic in a creative or innovative way and provides a unique perspective. Creativity of both content and its presentation will be heavily weighted in the video judging.

Terms and Conditions

• Exclusivity: Submissions must be posted online during the dates of the contest and must not be entered in, or associated with, any other contest or campaign. Previously posted submissions from publicized contests will be disqualified.
• Terms of Service: Entrants must comply with the terms of service — including any community guidelines and copyright policies — for the platform that hosts your video. If your video is removed from the host platform for violation of its terms of service, you will be disqualified from the contest.
  • YouTube Terms of Service
  • Instagram Terms of Service
  • TikTok Terms of Service
• Music: Use of music in the video is optional. To avoid violating copyright law, entrants are strongly encouraged to use either an original song; music available in the chosen platform; or royalty-free licensed music (e.g., music purchased — or downloaded for free — from a stock music website), etc.
• Permission: Contestants are responsible for securing all necessary rights, licenses, clearances, releases, consents and/or permissions from any other people who appear in the video entry.
• Originality: You represent and warrant that your entry is original and in full compliance with the terms of service of the platform hosting the video (i.e., YouTube, Instagram or TikTok).
• Ownership: You retain ownership of your video. However, by entering the Contest, you grant to the AASM a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use that video (including to reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works, display and perform it) in connection with the Contest and AASM’s (and its successors’ and Affiliates’) business, including for the purpose of promoting the Contest. 

Appropriateness

Video submissions must NOT:

• Promote any product or brand.
• Violate the terms of service of the host platform. 
• Identify other individuals by name, without written permission.
• Contain any of the following:  profanity; content depicting or promoting sexual activity; content depicting or promoting illegal activity; content that depicts or promotes violence or harm; or any other offensive, obscene, or inappropriate content, which will be determined by the AASM and the Contest Judges.

Indemnity

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless the AASM, its Affiliates, officers, directors, employees and agents, from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including attorney’s fees) arising from: (i) your participation in the Contest; (ii) your violation of any term of this Agreement; (iii) your violation of any third party right, including without limitation any copyright, property, or privacy right; or (iv) any claim that your video caused damage to a third party. This defense and indemnification obligation will survive this Agreement and the Contest.

Permissions

By submitting an entry, you grant to the AASM and its affiliated companies the right, except where prohibited by law, to use your name, likeness, picture, voice, biographical information, submission/entry and written or oral statements, for advertising and promotional purposes in promoting or publicizing the Contest, the AASM and its mission and services, without compensation unless required by law. You shall have no right of approval, no claim to compensation, and no claim (including, without limitation, claims based on invasion of privacy, defamation, rights of integrity or attribution, or right of publicity) arising out of any use, alteration, or use in composite form of your name, picture, likeness, address (city and state only), biographical information, or entry. 

Rights

The rights granted herein shall extend to the AASM and its affiliated companies and agents with respect to all entrants in the Contest, including the entrants who are selected as winners and those entrants who are not selected. The AASM is under no obligation to use the winning entries or any other entry for any purpose. 

Governing Law

All claims arising out of or relating to this Contest will be governed by Illinois law and will be litigated exclusively in the federal or state courts of DuPage County, Illinois.