Science suggests school should start later

By Rebecca Tompkins
April 3, 2018

According to the  National Sleep Foundation, 70 percent of teens are not getting the recommended hours of sleep.

On average, teens and young adults should be getting between eight to 10 hours of sleep on a daily basis. When students have a lack of sleep, they are more likely to drink soft drinks and they tend to not participate in any physical activity.

“When I’m tired and running on little sleep and I have an early class like an 8 a.m., I tend to drink an energy drink or ice tea or even soda just so I can get some type of caffeine into my body to keep me going,” Cierra Saunders, an information science technology major, said.

Students who do not sleep enough often fall asleep in class. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

According to the Sleep.org, when one district in Kentucky moved its start time back, they found that students got about 50 more minutes of sleep per night, and the rate of car crashes for young adults drivers dropped.

Moving back the start time of classes not only makes students more alert for their first class, it also ensures they have more energy later in the day.

“I find it harder to focus on my 8:15 a.m class then my 9:40 a.m, but when it comes to the afternoon classes, that’s when I find I struggle, too,” Brittany Lambert, junior education major minoring in special education, said.

According to Pediatric Clinics of North America, the secretion of melatonin in the brain starts at or after 10:45 p.m. and goes until about 8:00 in the morning. Melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate a person’s sleep cycle. Melatonin usually takes up to 50 minutes to dissipate, and being in class before the melatonin is completely gone can make learning more difficult for the student.

The consequences of not getting enough sleep are vast.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, not engage in daily physical activity, suffer from symptoms of depression, engage in unhealthy risk behaviors [and] perform poorly in school.”

“If my morning class started later then 8:15 a.m., I feel like I would be able to be more active, but since I am so tired during my morning class and the rest of the day, all I want to do is go back to my room and take a nap,” Taylor Lawrence, a junior criminology major with a biology minor, said.

Additionally, making classes start later not only benefits young adults, it also benefits the economy.

According to Rand Corporation, shifting school start time from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. could contribute more than $80 billion to the U.S economy within a decade, as a result of less car crashes and an increase in academic performance that would lead to a higher graduation rate.

“If we had later start times for school, it would not only benefit us as teachers, but it would benefit the kids” Alexa Piro, junior education and special eduation major, said.

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Rebecca Tompkins

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