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Student Athletes Should Start Later

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If a survey was given out to 100 students on what they hate most about school, some would say they do not like the lunches, or how long the classes were. The majority of the students who took this survey would say that school start times needed to be later in the morning. Around the age of sixteen, students start to get jobs, and start driving which equal a ton of late work nights and loads of stress trying to figure out how not to die while driving with their parents. If a working student gets off at their grocery store job at 9:30, this student is probably not going to fully get ready to go to sleep until 11:00. If this student gets up for school at 6:00 the next morning, this student gets at most seven hours of good sleep instead of the …show more content…

Athletes who are sleep deprived report slower reaction times that could lead to injuries so if schools started later, athletes should be at the top of their game every night. Student athletes have many responsibilities throughout their day including maintaining their good grades, behaving well in school, and putting their best effort out during the practices and games. If the star basketball player struggles to get good sleep every night, then has a hard time at school that day, will this player come out at the game that night with his full focus on the game? Probably not. Athletes more than anyone need those 9 hours of sleep or it could potentially kill them. A study was conducted in 2011 on a Stanford basketball team investigating the effects of sleep extension on specific measures of athletic performance, as well as reaction time and daytime sleepiness. It is well known that sleep that sleep deprivation and sleep disturbance can impair mental and physical function, immune response and other restorative processes important for athletes ( Early School Start Time/Athletic Performance, 2013). According to the study, athletes are recommended to get 10 hours of sleep a night for faster reaction times and peak athletic performances. If student athletes do not get at least the normal recommended 9 hours of sleep, they are more than likely to make a risky decision that could lead to an injury (Early School Start Time/Athletic Performance, 2013). The researchers asked the player to maintain their normal nighttime schedule which is six to nine hours for two to four weeks and then aim to sleep 10 hours each night for the next five to seven weeks. During this study, players abstained from drinking coffee and alcohol and they were asked to take daytime naps when travel prohibited them from reaching the 10 hours if nighttime sleep. At the end of

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