Why We Should Starting School Start Later

How tired do you feel right now? Are you regretting your all nighter, barely functioning, or one of the few that got a good night’s sleep? About 90% of high school students across the entire US get less than eight hours of sleep per night. That would mean that in this class, only two people got a minimum of eight hours of sleep last night. Our 7:35 AM school wake up call goes against the natural clock of a teenager. With those early alarms come the dangers of being sleep deprived. Being sleep deprived can have harmful, and sometimes fatal, effects on your life. Research even shows the many student benefits of starting schools later. Schools all across America should start later, a goal of starting at earliest of 8:30am. The natural, internal clock of a teenager makes it harder to fall asleep before 11pm and harder to wake up earlier. Since the early 1990’s, researchers have known that teenagers have a sleep-phase delay. This means that we have a harder time going to bed early or waking up early. The circadian rhythm makes the brain more alert in the evening and tired later in the night. The action of schools starting before 8:30 is going against nature and the instinct of teenagers. …show more content…
If students don’t have enough sleep they can be more depressed, suicidal, overweight, have more acne, and perform worse physically and mentally. Feeling sleepy can also make you as impaired as driving with a blood alcohol content of .08%, which is actually illegal in some states.“Drowsy driving causes over 100,000 crashes each year” (National Sleep Foundation). If schools continue to start earlier that 8 o’clock in the morning, students will not perform to the best of their ability and could face life-threatening