Book Bags or Under-eye Bags?
It is often joked about how teenagers love to sleep and can never wake up early however, many do not realize that there are legitimate scientific reasons as to why this is. Many may attribute teenagers’ inherent sleepiness to their staying up late doing who knows what or a general laziness, but, although those may apply to some teens, it is actually caused by a change in their biological clocks, or circadian rhythms, delaying sleep by several hours, something that is also made even worse by having to wake up early in the morning for school. Teenagers are being forced into a sleep schedule that does not suit their biological needs and is causing bad sleeping habits early on in their lives. Schools may think that …show more content…
The biggest problem with the early start times is the disruption of the circadian rhythms of students. The circadian rhythm is a natural way for the body to keep time, repeating on a 24 or near 24 hour cycle. It regulates body temperature and hormonal changes but most notably sleep patterns and tends to be most affected by exposure to light, which can often lead to issues sleeping in people who use technology right before bed (Owens 3). A very common example of a disruption in circadian rhythm is jet lag, a disorder caused by when a person travels across multiple time zones. Their circadian rhythm is still stuck in their original time zone because it’s not the same time where they’re at as where their home is which is where their body still thinks they are. A similar thing is happening with teenagers and school. If teens’ natural circadian rhythms are their “home time zones” then the hours of school are in its own other “time zone.” Teenagers are not meant to be in the “school time zone” but they are forced into it anyway and it causes many issues because they are not sleeping enough due to a shift in their circadian rhythms beginning in the early teen years. In general, children begin feeling tired around 8 or 9 pm before puberty, but …show more content…
This is where schools should come in and begin pushing back their start times. Two experiments conducted by different research groups show what happens when start times are pushed forward and when they are pushed back. The first experiment was to discover what happened to students’ sleep when the start time of their school went from 8:25 am to 7:20 am. The freshmen and sophomores of the school were the study group (Carskadon 3). The results were a drop in the amount of sleep students were getting from an average of 7 hours 9 minutes of sleep to 6 hours and 50 minutes of sleep. None of the students slept more than 8 hours, far below the recommended 9 hours, and none were able to adjust to an optimal level of sleep or revert to the amount of sleep they originally had (Carskadon 4). The second experiment moved the start time back from 8:00 am to 8:30 am. The results showed that by delaying the start time of the school by just 30 minutes, the students were able to get 45 minutes more sleep than they had before. They also had a decrease in negative moods and fatigue and the school had a better attendance rate (Owens 1). The difference in the results between the studies is big. Pushing the start time forward completely threw off the students’ sleep patterns and they were unable to adjust to
It is often joked about how teenagers love to sleep and can never wake up early however, many do not realize that there are legitimate scientific reasons as to why this is. Many may attribute teenagers’ inherent sleepiness to their staying up late doing who knows what or a general laziness, but, although those may apply to some teens, it is actually caused by a change in their biological clocks, or circadian rhythms, delaying sleep by several hours, something that is also made even worse by having to wake up early in the morning for school. Teenagers are being forced into a sleep schedule that does not suit their biological needs and is causing bad sleeping habits early on in their lives. Schools may think that …show more content…
The biggest problem with the early start times is the disruption of the circadian rhythms of students. The circadian rhythm is a natural way for the body to keep time, repeating on a 24 or near 24 hour cycle. It regulates body temperature and hormonal changes but most notably sleep patterns and tends to be most affected by exposure to light, which can often lead to issues sleeping in people who use technology right before bed (Owens 3). A very common example of a disruption in circadian rhythm is jet lag, a disorder caused by when a person travels across multiple time zones. Their circadian rhythm is still stuck in their original time zone because it’s not the same time where they’re at as where their home is which is where their body still thinks they are. A similar thing is happening with teenagers and school. If teens’ natural circadian rhythms are their “home time zones” then the hours of school are in its own other “time zone.” Teenagers are not meant to be in the “school time zone” but they are forced into it anyway and it causes many issues because they are not sleeping enough due to a shift in their circadian rhythms beginning in the early teen years. In general, children begin feeling tired around 8 or 9 pm before puberty, but …show more content…
This is where schools should come in and begin pushing back their start times. Two experiments conducted by different research groups show what happens when start times are pushed forward and when they are pushed back. The first experiment was to discover what happened to students’ sleep when the start time of their school went from 8:25 am to 7:20 am. The freshmen and sophomores of the school were the study group (Carskadon 3). The results were a drop in the amount of sleep students were getting from an average of 7 hours 9 minutes of sleep to 6 hours and 50 minutes of sleep. None of the students slept more than 8 hours, far below the recommended 9 hours, and none were able to adjust to an optimal level of sleep or revert to the amount of sleep they originally had (Carskadon 4). The second experiment moved the start time back from 8:00 am to 8:30 am. The results showed that by delaying the start time of the school by just 30 minutes, the students were able to get 45 minutes more sleep than they had before. They also had a decrease in negative moods and fatigue and the school had a better attendance rate (Owens 1). The difference in the results between the studies is big. Pushing the start time forward completely threw off the students’ sleep patterns and they were unable to adjust to