Persuasive Essay On Why Sleep Should Be Later After School

It is a well known fact that teenagers in general need more sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation: “[teenage sleep] is as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. It can even help you to eat better and manage stress of being a teen.” When schools start as early as 7 o’clock, it puts students health at risk. Adolescents already have a natural shift in their internal body clock, or circadian rhythm when it comes to sleep. Puberty allows this to happen, causing a “sleep phase delay” of about two hours. When teens can't fall asleep until late and school starts so early, they aren't getting nearly enough sleep. Lack of such, according to CDC, makes the individual

Some people may ask, “Why don’t teenagers just go to bed earlier, instead of having school later?” This is a common concern for parents and teachers as well. The fact is, adolescents have different sleeping patterns than adults do. Throughout the day, teenagers are most tired during the morning, and most alert at night (Cerve 4). “The body’s internal clock shifts after puberty, making it

As a result of a changing body and mind, adolescent sleep cycles have different needs than those of adults or younger children. As a matter of fact, Biologically, sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during adolescence -- meaning it is natural to not be able to fall asleep before 11:00 pm (“Teens”). In addition to biological change in sleep patterns, teenagers also tend to have eccentric sleep cycles. Obtaining less than healthy hours of sleep during the school week and then catching up on their sleep on the weekends. Most teenagers during the school week, do not get the suggested amount of sleep. In fact, according to a recent poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, 80% of teenagers do not get the suggested amount of sleep of 9 hours on school nights (“School Start”). With changing bodies and minds, along with an increased amount of schoolwork and extracurricular activities, teenagers need more sleep than children of a younger age. Experts believe that moving back the start time of school for high school students will improve grades, test scores, and the overall health and personality of many students.

School start times play a very big role in a student’s overall development, especially when they aren’t getting enough sleep because of it. An important factor to consider for a student’s development is the act of sleeping; that a lack of it can cause serious problems to the students’ growing body. According to research done with Brown University’s Julie Boergers, the author of the letter “Benefits of later school start times”, the amount of sleep that adolescents need ranges from 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep. Only 17 percent of these students

Have you ever been really tired when you wake up for school in the morning? Sleep is very important to all teens, or it should be. Young adults should have 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep every night, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), in Sarah McKibben’s article “Wake Up Calls”. Unfortunately, two-thirds of teens are getting less than 7 hours of sleep each night, according to the NSF’s chart. This is causing a large number of schools and scientists to think that schools should start later in the morning. I fiercely disagree with this. Schools should not start later because starting later for high schools would cause too many negative consequences.

Many high school students wander into school each day shuffling around and trying not to pass out in their classes. In order to cut back on sleep-deprived teens, we must follow through with this solution; it would give students enough time to go to bed early and wake up at an appropriate time. According to Sleep Foundation, teenagers require eight to ten hours of sleep and are not getting that with the current schedule. Many teenagers have discombobulated biological clocks and need the opportunity to adjust their sleeping schedule as they see fit. If this plan were to be put into practice, more positive attitudes would emerge from schools all over America due to their fulfilled need of sleep, which would give teachers, students, principals, counselors, and even parents a more productive start to each day. On the other hand, I realize that the opposing side of this intelligent solution may proclaim that some teenagers would abuse this and go to bed even later, but people must also realize that a large amount of teenagers who wish to succeed academically would gladly not abuse this and respect this privilege; although there would be some teenagers to mistreat this, it is up to the maturity level of the student, and they choose whether they want to succeed or

Most student’s after school activities start between 5 to 7 o’clock and don’t end until 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. If students start school at 7:30 a.m. it makes 6:15 a.m. a viable rising time, with our knowledge a teenager needs 9 ¼ hours of sleep, so we are asking them to go to sleep by 9 p.m. Very rarely is a teenager with a hectic schedule going to be able to complete school work, sports practice or games, clubs, volunteer work, and paid employment and go to bed by 9:00 p.m. Teenagers are not able to get their after school activities completed and get the 9 ¼ hours of sleep they need to have higher overall performance in academics and

Most teens need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night. Anyone who wants to succeed at what they are do must have the right amount of sleep. Unfortunately, many teens do not get enough sleep. Therefore, school should start later for teenagers. Heath professionals and sleep researchers have stated that starting school early is harming children in many ways. Lack of sleep can cause major heart diseases, diabetes and much more. Many studies show that sleeping less than 5 hours a night increases the risk of death from all causes by about 15 percent. When implemented, the solution would benefit the students and teachers. Both the students and teachers would be energized, and ready for their day. Continuing on, the time schedule

Early school hours prevent many students from getting the doctor’s requirement of 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night. “The CDC’s recommendations come a year after the American Academy of Pediatrics urged schools to adjust start times so more kids would get the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of nightly rest” (Emily Richmond). Because the typical sleep cycle for teens begins around 11 p.m., this causes many

At this point, a lot of children do not get a healthy amount of sleep each night because school starts way too early. “Teens bodies’ inner clocks make it hard for them

“It’s 6:00 a.m., the alarm blares loudly in my ear, I struggle to open my eyes and drag myself out of bed, I finally wake up, get ready, arrive at school, and before I know it, I am asleep in first period.” “Two out of three U.S. high school students sleep less than 8 hours on school nights (Yeager).” According to Dr. Robert, an associate professor of internal medicine in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School teens need at least nine hours of sleep. Getting a sufficient amount of sleep is crucial to be healthy and to function properly (Holohan). When teenagers reach a certain age, their bodies sleep cycles start to shift. Teenagers naturally want to fall asleep later and wake up later because of their bodies “inner clocks (Yeager).” Schools should start later in the morning because it can improve student’s academic performance, reduce teen car crash rates, and helps prevent emotional disorders.

Students in high school struggle with sleep so seriously that medical professionals call it an epidemic, with 87% of students getting less than the recommended amount of sleep (Richter). It’s difficult to balance sports and extracurriculars with school and homework, and, come junior and senior year, college applications and jobs as well. All these activities in students’ lives leave them little time for a good night’s sleep. Unfortunately for them, sleep is actually crucial, as it has not only been shown to improve GPA, but also help students with memorizing information (Hershner). Not to mention that most high schools start classes early in the morning, with 29.9% of schools starting before 7:30 am, according to a 2012 survey (CDC). According

Schools that start before 8 a.m. are a major reason students aren’t getting adequate sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation teenagers need on average 8 ½ - 9 ½ hours of sleep a night(Schute, Nancy). Realistically students rarely get that much sleep. When students don’t get adequate sleep it has the ability to affect their attention span, memory, problem-solving ability, and mood(Rosenberg, Russell). Are these students actually expected to pay attention, learn, solve problems, and have an acceptable attitude when they wake up sleep deprived? With a sleep cycle that changes once students hit puberty and an increase in the production of melatonin its nearly impossible for teens to fall asleep before 10:30 p.m.(Edwards, Finley). In my own experience I don’t even get tired until around 11:30 p.m. and barely fall asleep before 12, so it makes it extremely difficult to wake up at 6 a.m. and get ready for the day.

The national sleep epidemic that has taken the world by storm is also taking a toll in not only teen’s health but also their performance in school as well as personal safety. The sleep deprivation that teens are experiencing everyday has caused many health problems as well as academic problems. I believe starting school later will hinder this ever growing teen sleep deprivation problem we face today. Letting teens sleep later is beneficial to their learning capacity as their heightened alertness improved their classroom performance as well as better memory and many other crucial achievements. So probably starting school later, but no later than eight thirty am, will lead students to perform better in school and their health will improve drastically.

It is estimated that only 15 percent actually get these amounts (Kids Suffer from Sleep Deprivation). This is particularly important for students who wish to do well in school. Dr. Carl Hunt, the director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research, is spearheading a sleep campaign. Her philosophy is, “Sleep well, do well.” This is something that shouldn’t be taken to lightly. Sleep problems effect about 70 million Americans of all ages. Teens often have problems with daytime sleepiness. The old idea of early to bed, early to rise isn’t necessarily the best answer. Society is simply asking to much of teens (Sleep experts to teens). A combination of school, work, study and leisure, leaves very little time left for sleep. Being deprived of sleep definitely has an effect on how well students do in school and may be putting their health at risk. College students who stay up all night to study for a test or write a big paper that’s due often have no choice because of the pressures to do well and succeed, but at what price do they pay?