The Lack Of Sleep In Alexandra Robbins's The Overachievers

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

The primary reason for attending school is for adolescents to get an education in hopes of getting a good job.  Attendance, test scores, and GPA’s all play an important role in a student’s success in school, and if they can all be improved by pushing the start time back, then this issue should be pushed further.  The root problem of students not performing to their full potential has to do with the inability to focus from drowsiness in class due to the lack of sleep they are getting.  To support this point, Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior, and his team, “found that students showed up for morning classes seriously sleep-deprived and that the 7:20 a.m. start time required them to be awake during hours that ran contrary to their internal clocks” (Richmond).  In other words, Carskadon believes that current high school start times go against teens’ natural sleep patterns, making them be awake at a time where their bodies aren’t ready to get up yet.  This causes concentration issues making paying attention in class harder, and kids not getting the best grades they can.  Also, sleep won’t get any

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.

Imagine you are sitting in class and you start to fall asleep. You are very tired because you stayed up all night studying for your quiz the next day. Trust me, you are not the only one. Many students do this everyday, because they have not gotten enough sleep. In this paper, I will discuss why school should start later and present scientifically proven research that shows teens need more sleep.

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.

Their health is affected because students may not be getting enough sleep. Lack of sleep also known as sleep deprivation can include: “weight gain and eating disorders and increased risk of obesity, cardiovascular problems, and diabetes; reduced immunity; depression; anxiety; substance abuse; mood swings; behavior problems; suicidal ideation; and potential impacts on brain development” (Why). The recommended amount of sleep for growing teens in middle and high school is eight to ten hours a night (MacMillan). The recommended amount of sleep for teenagers is difficult for many teens to achieve because of how early school starts and how late they get home from school related activities the night before. For example, if a student was in basketball they could have practice from after school to five or later, or they could have a game an hour away. After their practice or game they could have a lot of homework and need to study for a test they have the next day. Students then go to sleep late, still having to get up early the next morning and go to school to take that test. The amount of sleep also has to do with the way the teen brain works. Emily Richmond says, “Adolescents’ ‘internal clocks’—the circadian rhythms that control a human’s responses to stimuli and determine sleep patterns—operate differently than those of other age groups. It’s typically more difficult for adolescents to fall asleep earlier in the

To conclude, we can see how not only does more sleep make us prepared and more focused for the school day, but how it also affects our positive sleeping patterns, our ability to learn, and the amount of stress that our bodies receive. We see how many liable resources were used to conclude that sleep truly is one of the most important factors in a student's everyday life and supports the idea that school should begin later for the most positive results. Starting school later will truly minimize bad sleep patterns and habits, increase the amount of learning and lastly, put less stress on our minds and

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

Before some teens leave home, they are already facing other struggles. Disadvantaged students often suffer academically because of early start time, with counteractive social effects (“Early school start benefits disadvantage kids” 2). In the morning, while students are still lethargic, they are forced to attend classes, when they still don’t have full cognitive functions (Wolfson and Carskadon 12). Later on, after school has ended, extracurriculars start. Grogginess decreases performance in physical activities such as sports, then, as a result, practice becomes ineffective (“Backgrounder: Later school start Times” 1). What does this lead to? Poor attendance, lowered GPAs, and lost scholarships. A survey of Factors Influencing High School Start times confirmed this, “These studies (Baroni et al., 2004; Wahlstrom, 2002a, 2002b) indicate that delayed sleep schedules and early school start times are associated with daytime sleepiness, dozing in class, attention difficulties, and poorer academic performance” (Wolfson and Carskadon 4). This means that in the current situation that most teenagers are in, they are left to make the decision between being well-rested, or participating fully in school. Many choose the latter. However, if schools started later in the day, it could only benefit students’ educations. After delaying school start time, schools reported that

Many students are not getting enough sleep. In especially middle schools and high school, teenagers are sleep deprived. At the age when they need it the most, teens are not getting enough hours of rest because of how early their school starts. It is very unreasonable that school for teenagers starts early when they need a great amount of sleep. Research shows that “33% of teenagers report falling asleep in school” (Wake up Call, 2014). If students are falling asleep in school, they are not getting the full amount of education and knowledge taught to them. They do not have the energy and positivity to accomplish their best during the school day.

As the sun is barely rising Victoria is already on the school bus going to Catalina Foothills High School in Tucson Arizona. Finally, by the time third period is practically over she begins to wake up and feel ready to learn, but the school day is already halfway at an end. Seventy percent of teens aren’t getting enough sleep and this could be contributing to why they can’t focus or retain information in their first classes like Victoria (O’Neill 1). Whether or not school should start later to fix this problem has become a large debate in today’s society. Later start times are beneficial for adolescents because it will decrease rates of sleep deprivation and fit their biological rhythm, as well as bring importance to the issue, even though

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

Research tells us that the natural tendency for teenagers is to stay up late at night and wake up later in the morning. Evidence suggests that teenagers are indeed seriously sleep deprived. A recent poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that 60% of children under the age of 18 complained of being tired during the day, according to their parents, and 15% said they fell asleep at school during the year. According to the National Sleep Foundation’s “2002 Sleep in America” poll, 80% of respondents said high schools should start no earlier than 8:00 a.m. each day; nearly one-half of these respondents (47%) said start times should be between 8:00

Adolescents don’t choose to stay up late; they do know the consequences of being tired the next day. “The starting time of school puts limits on the time available for sleep, this is a nonnegotiable limit established largely without concern