A team of researchers from Brown University and Lifespan health system conducted a study that monitored the sleep habits of children ages 9 to 18. They found out that children go to bed later and later as they get older, yet they continue to wake up at the same time to go to school. The result of this is a decrease in the amount of sleep every night. The Academy of Pediatrics has proposed a school starting time of 8:30 am.
As we learned in class, the amount of sleep we get is directly correlated to our cognitive performance in school and affects our mood. There have been many debates and research about how much sleep is necessary. Schools are beginning to take the results of the study into account. Fairfax Country has recommended a start time between 8-8:10 am for the next school year.
This article caught my attention because what college student doesn't love sleep?! Sleep is something that every college student values because we are up so late doing homework and studying for a big test and are very sleep deprived. All of our sleeping schedules are off and I find myself needing a nap in the middle of the day. I think that high schoolers would benefit from a later starting time because even another half hour of sleep would be beneficial. Maybe universities would even consider pushing back 8 am college classes so students can have another half hour of sleep!
Source:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/11/07/sleep-patterns-study-lends-new-support-to-proposals-for-later-school-start-times-for-teens/
I like that this topic was researched since we all know that teenagers do need a lot of extra sleep to grow, develop and stay healthy. My only concern would be that students are not getting extra sleep at all if school start time was pushed back. If school is starting later that means extracurriculars will be starting later too and time spent on homework would be pushed back. So would students be getting any extra sleep? If class time is more productive in the mornings when pushing back school start times then maybe this benefit would outweigh the above consequence. And maybe starting only 30 minutes later wouldn't matter too much. It would be interesting to see this being implemented in schools.
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