Change School Start Times Don’t you remember those terrible days waking up early Monday through Friday for high school? Or maybe that’s your life right now? Either or, it’s a terrible thing that nobody should have to endure, especially if you’re not a morning person. I’ve certainly had my personal share of this; waking up around 5 am everyday and not being able to get enough sleep due to balancing my social life, schoolwork, and extracurricular activities. Did you also know that despite that terrible feeling of being tired all the time it also comes with serious health risks And decline in school performance? When teenagers are sleep deprived, it can lead to them getting worse grades than usual, cause them to accidentally injure themselves …show more content…
It doesn’t really benefit them at all so if they aren’t doing well in a subject and don’t have any extra study time, they need to sacrifice their own extracurricular schedule to make time for school. Doing extracurricular activities is very important to young students because it helps them become better at socializing, makes them more well-rounded, and can help them find something that they are good at or enjoy doing. The fact that they may have to give something up that they enjoy a lot just to focus on school because they are not getting enough sleep is absolutely sickening and could be avoided if schools didn’t start so early in the morning. Another reason that high schools should start later is that it can cause them to injure or hurt themselves by mistake because they are too sleepy. It’s very hard to focus on anything when you’re sleepy so imagine trying to get to school when you’re so drowsy and tired from a poor night of rest. A survey was taken of over 1,600 parents and adolescents about their sleeping habits and how it affects them and the results were …show more content…
Many people may not know this but sleep deprivation can be a huge factor of someone obtaining bipolar disorder. “Sleep deprivation increased P2RX7 expression in healthy persons and the putatively low-activity P2RX7 rs2230912 allele A variant was associated with rapid cycling in bipolar disorder. This supports earlier findings of P2RX7 associations to affective disorder and is in agreement with that particularly rapid cycling patients have a more vulnerable diurnal system.” (P2RX7 1) Sleep deprivation truly is no joke. Sure it can make someone feel tired and stressed, but on a more serious note, it can even change our gene expression. Genetics define who we are. It’s our DNA. When different genes and alleles are expressed, it chemically changes who we are as a person. It can make us physically look different, or it can make us vulnerable for certain diseases. Now when a teenager isn’t getting the proper amount of sleep that he or she needs, they are risking a higher chance of becoming bipolar, which is a serious mental disease. Imagine a young family member obtaining a mental disorder just because of waking up and going somewhere they are required to go to five days a week. It’s crazy to think about, isn’t it? Not only does sleep deprivation put teens at risk for bipolar disorder, it can also put them at risk for obesity as well, which
First there are many serious risks of being sleep deprived. Since so many teenagers are dealing with stress, anxiety, and lack of sleep, if they do this for too long it can have a major affect on their health. The third leading cause of death between the ages of fifteen to twenty-four is suicide. Dealing with sleep deprivation is a major risk factor for having suicidal thoughts, whether or not the teen is depressed. Sleep is food for the brain, without it, it can take a major toll on people. Studies have shown that those who go to bed late do worse in school, and experience a harder time controlling their emotions. Lack of sleep can also affect teens in the long run; causing them to have a higher risk of obesity and diabetes. Sleep deprivation is very harmful to teens, their body needs sleep to function properly, without it, it can damage certain things. Dr. Michael Breus, a clinical psychologist and sleep specialist, said “[Sleep deprivation] is extremely detrimental at all stages of life, In the teen years, when development continues the sleep deprivation effects of brain and body development are significant,” (Breus). This shows just how important sleep is for someone. Having a goods night rest helps their minds, making everything easier, and helps them develop properly.
It is a well known fact that teenagers in general need more sleep. According to the National Sleep Foundation: “[teenage sleep] is as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. It can even help you to eat better and manage stress of being a teen.” When schools start as early as 7 o’clock, it puts students health at risk. Adolescents already have a natural shift in their internal body clock, or circadian rhythm when it comes to sleep. Puberty allows this to happen, causing a “sleep phase delay” of about two hours. When teens can't fall asleep until late and school starts so early, they aren't getting nearly enough sleep. Lack of such, according to CDC, makes the individual
There is no known specific pathophysiology that is associated with Bipolar spectrum disorder, nonetheless, it’s thought that this disorder arises from many areas such as, genetic, physiological, environmental, epigenetics and psychosocial
School could be a pain, especially forcing yourself to wake up early in the morning just to go to school. We could at least wake up more later than early in the morning if we are going to school. Imagine if you could go to school later than usually. This plan actually help students. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging education policymakers to start middle- and high-school classes later in the morning. The idea is to improve the odds of adolescents getting sufficient sleep so they can thrive both physically and academically. The school day should start more later because student needs enough sleep, students could get excessive sleepiness in adolescents and
Lack of sleep can seriously affect students mental and physical health and can change it permanently. “Effects on one crummy night’s sleep: You feel groggy, forgetful, clumsy,” according to Scholastic Choices, When Sleep Becomes a Nightmare. Lack of sleep makes adolescents become more vulnerable to depression and obesity (npr.org). For example, when people are tired they want foods or drinks with lots of sugar or caffeine to give them a temporary boost, but it can later on affect their body negatively (sleepingresorces.com). When students don’t get the right amount of sleep they can become
School start times play a very big role in a student’s overall development, especially when they aren’t getting enough sleep because of it. An important factor to consider for a student’s development is the act of sleeping; that a lack of it can cause serious problems to the students’ growing body. According to research done with Brown University’s Julie Boergers, the author of the letter “Benefits of later school start times”, the amount of sleep that adolescents need ranges from 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep. Only 17 percent of these students
Have you ever been really tired when you wake up for school in the morning? Sleep is very important to all teens, or it should be. Young adults should have 8.5-9.25 hours of sleep every night, according to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), in Sarah McKibben’s article “Wake Up Calls”. Unfortunately, two-thirds of teens are getting less than 7 hours of sleep each night, according to the NSF’s chart. This is causing a large number of schools and scientists to think that schools should start later in the morning. I fiercely disagree with this. Schools should not start later because starting later for high schools would cause too many negative consequences.
High school students should have a later starting time in school due to students not getting the amount of sleep they need to function. Students that stay up late at night are way too tired to learn when they get to school early in the morning. Most students who do stay up late are unable to sleep due to melatonin not yet being produced. This shows that starting school at a later time would have many positive benefits. These benefits include higher test scores, increased attendance, more participation from students, and higher performance from athletes.
Do you wake up in the mornings to your alarm and snooze it because you are still tired and need more sleep? Many students have complained about the time you are required to get up for school. Most teens are arguing that it is healthier for them to get more sleep. In the article “Despite proven benefits, Starting School Later Remains ‘A Tough Sell’” by Tim Walker, claims that “...letting students sleep and starting school later can lead to better health and academic outcomes.”. Students should be given more time to sleep because it is good for them.
This source gives the readers an in-depth overview of Bipolar Disorder and the causes of having the mental health issue. There’s a great distinction between the ups and downs people experience and bipolar disorder. Due to the ups and downs teens and children experience, bipolar disorder is hard to diagnose during those early years. The National Center of Biotechnology Information’s research program is run by Senior Investigators, Tenure Track Investigators, Staff Scientists, and Postdoctoral Fellows which makes the source credible. The source contained
Bipolar disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is “a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, and activity levels,” and
On average in today’s society most teens don’t like going to school that early in the morning. To have to wake up so early when they only get about seven hours of sleep, to have students be coming into school at 7:30AM or maybe even earlier in some other schools, is not right. Students need to have time at night to get work done, not only schoolwork but also non-schoolwork. Needless to say, the school schedule for high school students needs to be changed and be made where they go in later. That way they get their work done and get enough sleep because without much sleep students will not be getting high grades. A health survey that the University Health Center administered showed them that one in four students say that lack of sleep has
Secondly, school starting at a later time is beneficial academically. Most teens don’t get enough sleep which causes them to feel sleep deprived and stressed for school. Teens usually get six to seven hours of sleep but Dr. Cora Breuner says, “ We truly believe that our teenagers are getting six to seven hours of sleep a night, and they need eight to 10 (Shute).” This causes teens exhausted for the school and not mentally or physically prepared for each class in school. However, teens who get more sleep do better academically, with better standardized scores and a better quality living style (Shute). For example through one studies, showing the delay by an hour in start time, increases standardized test scores by roughly 3 percentile points (Edwards). So academically it is beneficial for the kids in school.
Almost every day high school students are waking up around six o’clock in the morning to get ready for school, some even earlier than that. Nearly every morning students are waking up without adequate sleep. If sleep is one of the most essential needs of the body in order to grow and develop, shouldn’t we be more aware of how much it affects students everyday performance? The ways in which students are affected by sleep-deprivation is precisely why school needs to start later.