Sleepless Nights and Wasted Days: Changing School Times to Benefit Students

Students,especially students who drive to and from school are also at risk of more car crashes because of sleep deprivation. Additionally getting good sleep is important to maintaining good health,staying awake and alert, and working at peak performance. Although students can simply sleep earlier, many need that time to study and complete homework, with a later start time students can get their homework down and get a sufficient amount of sleep.”According to this research, the ideal amount of sleep for the average teenager falls between 8.5 and 9.5 hours a night, and teenagers who receive adequate sleep benefit from better physical and mental health, safety, and academic performance. It also revealed that puberty causes a “phase delay” in teenagers, which shifts the time that teenagers fall asleep back by two

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

Adolescents today face a widespread chronic health problem: sleep deprivation. Research shows that getting enough sleep is a biological necessity. Sleep is essential for a person’s health and wellbeing, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF). Teens are among those least likely to get enough sleep; while they need on average 9 1/4 hours of sleep per night for optimal performance and health and brain development, teens average fewer than 7 hours per school night, and most report feeling tired during the day (Nationwide Childrens, 2003). The root of the problem is early school start times.

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

As children age and move from the first decade of life into the second the temptations to stay up later increases. The preference to stay up later is nearly universal among teenagers in all cultures and has even been observed in other mammals suggesting a biological basis. At the same time teenagers are beginning to stay up later and their recommended amount of daily sleep (8-10 hours) remains unchanged. Teenagers are unable to sleep in later as school start time determines when they must wakeup in the morning. This has led to an epidemic of chronically sleep deprived teenagers with only a small number of teenagers actually receiving

Across America school starts on average, at eight o’clock in the morning. When walking through school hallways full of kids on a typical school morning, one may see sleep deprived and tired students not looking forward to their early morning classes, waiting for the bell to ring to signal them to go to class. Students brains are not at their full potential at eight o’clock in the morning because the brain is not yet fully awake. Starting school at eight o’clock is too early for students’ minds. David A. Sousa confirms, “Teenagers are not getting enough sleep. Sleep deprivation affects their ability to store information, increases irritability, and leads to fatigue, which can cause accidents” (Sousa 117). Starting school

Only about fifteen percent of teens obtain the preferred eight hours of sleep they need to function properly (Neuroscience for Kids, 2010). Sixty percent of teens say that they are “tired” and fifteen percent fall asleep in class (School and Sleep Times, 2011). This shows that high schoolers are not getting

Many teenagers are not getting enough sleep and this is often due to early school start times. Adolescent bodies are naturally in what scientists call

Imagine: a world where a biological necessity is not seen as a priority, and adolescent’s educations are suffering. This is how schools’ think about sleep.What all human beings need to survive is being put on the back burner by most schools in America- sleep(11a). It has been proven through the process of scientific research that sleep is necessary on the same level as food or activity. Unfortunately, sleep deprivation is a chronic health problem that many youths suffer from today. Teens are naturally predisposed to go to sleep around 11 pm, but are forced to wake up around 6:15, not allowing any time for adequate sleep (“Backgrounder: Later school start Times” 1). Irregular sleep patterns during teenage years can cause long-term

Almost every day high school students are waking up around six o’clock in the morning to get ready for school, some even earlier than that. Nearly every morning students are waking up without adequate sleep. If sleep is one of the most essential needs of the body in order to grow and develop, shouldn’t we be more aware of how much it affects students everyday performance? The ways in which students are affected by sleep-deprivation is precisely why school needs to start later.

With class starting at 8:30 AM, extracurricular activities extending well past 8 PM, students working in after school jobs, trying to keep up on the constant demand of homework: high school students put getting a solid eight hours of sleep or even a quick power nap, at the bottom of their to-do lists. "Over-packed schedules and 12-hour days are draining already sleep-deprived teenagers. In high schools where most students go onto college, the pressure to excel inside and outside of the classroom leaves students with little time to relax." ("Power Napping," 1996). Lack of sleep is accepted as a part of high school. We've all seen our classmates fall asleep during a history lecture or video. The problem is that students are forced to stay up most of the night finishing projects and papers or studying for their tests the next day. Some argue that if teenagers would manage their time better, they could sleep enough at night, but with the competitiveness of students and the many activities they are involved in, they don't have a lot of time left.Sleep loss can take a devastating toll on the mind and body at any stage of life, from early childhood to older adulthood. But for teenagers, who are at a critical stage of development, skipping out on sleep can be particularly dangerous.In the teen years, when development continues the sleep deprivation effects of brain and body development are significant. Naps in school are usually frowned upon, but it

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?

Many individuals, especially adolescents, do not function well early in the morning. “…many teenagers are going to school with their brains essentially in sleep mode” (Kaufman, 2001). This makes it difficult to retain information and in return use the information they have learned later on according to Robert Gerson, a physician and parent (Heinen, 1996). There is a reasonable explanation for why adolescents need the sleep they need at the times in which they need it, or do it for that matter. “Their circadian rhythms, determined by release of the hormone melatonin and other factors, were telling them to stay up later (even if their homework was finished and the day’s chores complete) and to get up later. On basic biological level, many had no more control over that circadian switch than they did over growing facial hair or breasts” (Kaufman, 2001).