If you’re the parent of a teenager, you might not want to show them this article because I’m about to give them another reason to complain about getting out of the bed in the morning. If you are a teenager, read on! You have good reason to complain about getting out of bed in the morning.
Studies show that children in adolescence do not begin to produce melatonin, the chemical required to fall asleep, until 11pm or even later. For us adolescents, simply going to bed earlier to get up for school isn’t an option. As a result, we have an entire nation of chronically sleep deprived teenagers — the average american teenager gets between 7 and 7.25 hours of sleep per night, despite the fact that they need 9 to 9.25 to remain healthy.
High school start times haven’t always been this way — in the 1970’s many school districts were searching for a way to cut costs, and they realized that instead of having one bus fleet each for high school, middle school, and elementary school, they could instead use one bus fleet and start the schools at different times. All of that is well and good, except that they got the times backwards — anyone who has ever lived with a 6 year old will know that they are up and bouncing around at five in the morning, and your high school student will still have their head under the pillow by 9. This isn’t because your 6 year old is hyper and your teenager is lazy — it’s because of their biological programming, and I think we can all agree that neither a five-year old or a sleep-deprived teenager should be driving at 6 o’clock in the morning — almost 50% of adolescent car crashes are due to drowsy driving.
Beyond just the car crashes, though those alone should be enough to warrant a change, the chronic sleep deprivation American teens experience has far-reaching health implications. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, chronic sleep deprivation leads to increased risk for diabetes, mood disorders like depression and anxiety, and heart disease, not to mention the shorter-term effects of irritability, inattention, cognitive impairment, and a weakened immune system.
Sleep deprivation among teens is clearly an epidemic, but we can’t change teen’s biology, so we have to change the schools. The question is, does it work? Do teens get more sleep when school starts later, or do they just stay up even later doing homework? A number of school districts have tried a later start time, and they have found that the answer is clear — when school starts later, teens get more sleep.
When the Seattle Public School District changed its start time from 7:50 to 8:45, students got 34 minutes more sleep, attendance increased, and grades in 1st-period academic classes rose by 4.5 percent.
Sure, bus routes, athletics schedules, and transportation costs all pose a challenge, but school districts like Seattle are proving that challenge is a surmountable one, not to mention that at the end of the day this isn’t a nice-to have. It is a public health crisis.
In my recent campaign to change my own high school’s start time, I’ve found that the problem is not one of malice on the part of the school boards, but rather one of ignorance. Once I had shown the Monroe High School board that a later start time was necessary for their students and their community, they were inspired by the prospect and I was invited to a committee made with the goal of a start time in line with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of 8:30 or later.
Yes, change is hard, but through activism and education, it is easily attainable. For the safety of our roads and the health of our youth, we should make every effort possible to encourage our local school boards to adopt a later start time, because there are few changes so simple that can make such an enormous impact for entire communities of people.
Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂