SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the http://i.imgur.com/z4z67Ur.gif dept.
Opinion | Let Teenagers Sleep In
Three out of every four students in grades 9 to 12 fail to sleep the minimum of eight hours that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for their age group. And sleep deprivation is unremittingly bad news. Anyone who talks about sleep as if it's some kind of inconvenience and getting less of it is a virtue should be challenged. These people are dangerous.
At its most basic, insufficient sleep results in reduced attention and impaired memory, hindering student progress and lowering grades. More alarmingly, sleep deprivation is likely to lead to mood and emotional problems, increasing the risk of mental illness. Chronic sleep deprivation is also a major risk factor for obesity, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer. As if this weren't enough, it also makes falling asleep at the wheel much more likely.
In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., a policy now backed by the American Medical Association, the C.D.C. and many other health organizations.
[...] Whenever schools have managed the transition to a later start time, students get more sleep, attendance goes up, grades improve and there is a significant reduction in car accidents. The RAND Corporation estimated that opening school doors after 8:30 a.m. would contribute at least $83 billion to the national economy within a decade through improved educational outcomes and reduced car crash rates. The Brookings Institution calculates that later school start times would lead to an average increase in lifetime earnings of $17,500.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:06PM (4 children)
This.
Why is it so hard to go to bed earlier in order to get the recommended amount of sleep?
The way it's going now, today's acceptable start time for school will need to be changed again because kids will stay up even later and not get enough sleep. It will continue to move out if limits aren't put into place. And the world is full of limits; it's good to learn how to cope with them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @02:56PM (2 children)
That's not how sleepiness works, at least in healthy individuals (i.e., absent any particular sleep disorder). Sleep is driven by an individual's circadian rhythm which is synchronized with the solar day. You don't get to choose when you get sleepy, but without external influence it will tend to be around the same time every day.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @03:03PM (1 child)
Are you suggesting that if they move the start time later, that the students will still go to bed at the same time because that is their natural sleep time? That is the assumption made in this analysis, but I'm really not sure how valid it is. I wonder if anyone has seriously looked at whether that is true or whether the students will just stay up later and end up with the same amount of sleep they get now.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:02PM
That is the suggestion according to medical literature. This is just the first search result:
http://www.medicaldiscoverynews.com/shows/crt.html [medicaldiscoverynews.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by lgw on Tuesday September 25 2018, @05:49PM
If you find that "going to bed early" works for you at all, then congrats, you are a morning person. That's pretty much the definition.
Night owls, on the other hand, don't get sleepy in the evening, and laying in bed accomplishes nothing.