High schoolers always complain about their lack of sleep and how tired they are, so what’s the solution? Would starting later in the day help students get more sleep in the morning? Or will it just push the day back, but the cycle of no sleep just continues? I talked to some seniors to find out.
The CDC says that not getting enough sleep is “common” among high schoolers and it can often lead to numerous health risks such as “being overweight, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and using drugs, as well as poor academic performance.” Teenagers who don’t get enough sleep also “suffer from symptoms of depression” and don’t “engage in daily psychical activities”. The CDC also says that “adolescents become sleepy later at night and need to sleep later in the morning as a result in shifts in biological rhythm”. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that school start times for middle and high schools should be “8:30 am or later to give students the opportunity to get the amount of sleep they need.” Even with this research, “93% of high schools…in the U.S started before 8:30 am.”
Seattle Public Schools shifted their start times to be a little less than an hour after their previous start times, and saw large improvements in many aspects. Research done at the “University of Washington and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies announced that teens at two Seattle high schools got more sleep on school nights after start times were pushed later” which led to “a significant improvement in the sleep duration of students — all by delaying school start times so that they’re more in line with the natural wake-up times of adolescents.” The study also showed that “students did not stay up significantly later: They simply slept in longer, a behavior that scientists say is consistent with the natural biological rhythms of adolescents.” This is because “the time at which teens generally fall asleep is biologically determined — but the time at which they wake up is socially determined.” Meaning, the time at which a person falls asleep has to do with biological rhythms, but the time that we wake up has to do with start times of activities such as school or work. So a later start time does not equal staying up later, it just means students get to sleep in later. Because our bodies work differently at different ages, “to ask a teen to be up and alert at 7:30 a.m. is like asking an adult to be active and alert at 5:30 a.m”. Unfortunately, only about 25% of high schoolers “reported sleeping the minimum recommended eight hours each night.” If we are going to sleep at a normal hour but waking up earlier than our bodies intended, that can disrupt our circadian rhythms. And, “disrupted circadian rhythms can adversely affect digestion, heart rate, body temperature, immune system function, attention span and mental health.”
The data from the Seattle Public schools who switched their starting times show significant improvement from an extra 30 minutes to an hour of sleep. For example, “final grades were 4.5 percent higher.” It also showed that “the number of tardies and first-period absences…dropped” because students were able to sleep in just a little bit longer.
“School start time has serious implications for how students learn and perform in their education”
Horacio de la Iglesia
Lauren Mularczyk thinks that even just pushing the start of school back “only by like a half hour” would help because students “just don’t have time to sleep ever”. Shawn Galligan agrees, saying “I used to have a terrible sleep schedule because of school.” He wishes that “school started at a reasonable hour where I could get enough sleep.” He admits that now he gets about 7 hours of sleep, but the only way he can do that “is by taking melatonin every night”. He’s “not entirely sure that’s ideal” because he “basically [has] to drug [himself] every night to get enough sleep”. And even with the melatonin, Shawn only gets 7 hours of sleep. 7 hours seems like a luxury to some other students bogged down with homework and after school activities. But getting 7 hours, by using sleep aids no less, is still not enough sleep. Teenagers need at least 8 hours, preferably 10, in order to perform optimally.
Senior Melanie Yelle doesn’t believe that school should start later. This is because “after school activities would start later in the day and they would extend later in the day than they already do”. That is a concern with sports like Swim and Dive, who have to go to either the YMCA or Massasoit in order to have a pool. This makes the time that they get done with their after school activities pretty late. So if school were to start later, they in turn would get home later. Lauren agrees with the fact that it would push back activities starting and ending times, but she thinks the benefits might outweigh that. Shawn suggests going from 9-3, like the elementary schools.
Mularczyk goes on to argue that for many factors, teachers “should not be so hard on us about being late”. She thinks that because of the “insane amount[s] of traffic” and “especially in the winter [people] have issues” and just overall, because school starts early and you “have to leave your house” not later than 7:30 in the morning to get to school on time, there should be some lenience for people who arrive to class a few minutes after the bell.
We got a little taste of having a later start with a 2 hour delay on Valentine’s Day. Of course, starting 2 hours later is a big jump. But, maybe just an hour would suffice. It was nice to be able to sleep in a little later and have a slower start to the day. I was able to eat a good breakfast, relax a little and take some time to myself to mentally prepare for the day. Instead of snoozing my alarm until the last minute to get the most amount of sleep possible, rushing to get ready, and grabbing a granola bar as I head out the door. By the end of the day I didn’t feel exhausted like I usually do. I only needed one Celsius and I didn’t take a nap a pre-work power nap, which is my typical after school routine.