The Body Of Knowledge Regarding Adolescent Sleep Deprivation

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.

According to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 83.6 million Americans are sleep deprived (Almendrala). Among these sleepy Americans are teens, the most vulnerable to sleep deprivation, primarily due to demanding school schedules. For decades, school boards and administrators have contemplated the question of whether their school should start later. On the one hand, it is said that the change would interfere with parents’ work schedules, and transportation logistics, causing stress on families. It would also interfere with students’ extracurricular activities, after school sports, student employment, and reduce the time to access public areas such as libraries. On the other hand, a change

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

High Schools Need to Let their Kids Sleep Sleep is an important part of life, it allows your body to recharge and rest after a long day of work, play, or even school. Sleep has many health benefits and can make a person healthy and strong. It is important to let a little infant sleep so they can grow and develop properly; however infants isn’t the only age group that need to rest, teenagers need the extra sleeping time. Due to the early start of school, high schoolers do not receive their essential sleep time; this schools should delay the start of their schools so teenagers can develop and receive more health benefits and the country can receive economic benefits. Aaron E. Carroll is a Professor of Pediatrics and an Associate Dean for Research Mentoring.

Insufficient sleep is an epidemic amongst the average America teen. Teens are wired to stay up late and sleep in even later. So why is it that across the country most of the nation's high school's start before 8:30 am? Early start times make it nearly impossible for teens to get the minimum eight hours of sleep that is recommended. Thus, the lack of sleep contributes to other problems like poor performance inside of classrooms and risk of serious health problems for the teens. I am asking The Denver Board of Education to consider my proposal of a trial run of later start times in their desired lowest testing schools. If it is proved a more successful year for the students, then we would move forward in implementing later start times in all

Many students, teachers, parents, and more throughout the country have a firm stance on the argument that school should start at a later time not only because of our diverse sleep patterns, but also because of the negative stress it puts on our bodies, and it even how it can influence our ability to learn. We hear of students constantly complaining about getting very little sleep every night during the school week. Many teachers, parents, and even other students getting better sleep seem to just blow it off or think that students are overexerting the problem. We are starting to see that there are actual negative effects from students, mainly in high school, losing sleep due to extra curricular activities, homework, and any other activities

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

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

With early school start times, students tend not to have enough sleep. National Sleep Foundation and American Academy of Pediatrics recommend an eight to ten-hour sleep, which is sufficient. However, 69 percent of the students in the United States sleep less than eight hours per night, which is insufficient. It affects students negatively through health, behaviors, and grades. The lack of sleep promotes students to become sleepy, defenseless, and lead to the inability to concentrate, which may cause injuries and lack of knowledge in school. This dilemma has been around for years and years in the United States. Schools should start later to avoid this dilemma because it provides students with more time to sleep and an efficient work-and-rest

Morgan Manella in the article “Study: A Third of U.S. Adults Don’t Get Enough Sleep” argues that sleep deprivation can have a negative effect in someone’s health. Manella supports her argument by presenting statistics that shows how adults that don’t enough sleep have chronic conditions. The author’s purpose is to raise awareness so that people will sleep more often and have a better health condition.

Throughout the United States, students are attending school with an insufficient amount of sleep. The early school start times our depriving the students of their much needed sleep. Students that must ride the school bus are forced to wake up even earlier than those who drive or get dropped off at school. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute states,”It is recommended for teenagers get between nine and ten hours of sleep” (qtd. in “The Economic Case for Letting Teenagers Sleep a Little Later”).

Health problems like depression, hypertension, obesity and diabetes are related to the quality and amount of sleep you get.

The American education system is diverse and unique, and one aspect that varies wildly across the country is school start times. Deciding the start times for schools is dependent on many factors including bus schedules (Edwards, 2012), biological development (Borlase, Gander, & Gibson, 2013; Perkinson-Gloor, Lemola, & Grob, 2013), and parental preference (Edwards, 2012; Perkinson-Gloor et al., 2013). School start times are considered one aspect that can affect sleep duration, since they affect wake time. Adequate, high quality sleep is extremely important for adolescents and inadequate sleep can lead to a number of negative outcomes including poorer physical and mental health, as well as poorer academic performance (Borlase et al., 2013; Edwards, 2012; Keller, Smith, Gilbert, Bi, Haak, & Buckhalt, 2015; Paksarian, Rudolph, Jian-Ping, & Merikangas, 2015; Perkinson-Gloor, et al., 2013). Therefore, school start times are important to the field of education, because start times affect sleep and sleep, or lack thereof, can affect cognitive ability and performance. We are always looking to improve our schools and better educate our children, and the adjustment of the start time is a small change that may have a big impact.

To this point, the emphasis of the paper has been the social issue of sleep deprivation in adolescents and the relationship that school start times have with the issue. The focus now shifts to the evaluation on school start times and the associated policies in Fairfax County schools.

Many disorders and diseases can result from abnormal sleeping patterns that are triggered from sleep deprivation. The most common forms of sleep disorders include insomnia, sleep apnea, restless legs syndrome, and narcolepsy (NINDS 10). All of these sleep disorders begin from sleep deprivation and can be managed once they are diagnosed correctly. According to Urban, “Nervousness, dizziness, and sleeplessness may occur”, as a result of sleep deprivation (1). This proves that the slightest health changes can occur if sleep deprivation becomes a problem. According to NINDS, “The disorders and the resulting sleep deprivation interfere with work, driving, and social activities” (10). This shows that the effects of being sleep deprived can drastically change one’s everyday