July 20, 2010
COME, Sleep; O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,
Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low.
When a body sleeps, it uses less energy, brain cell activity changes, muscles repair, tissues regrow… while the external body lies still, the parts beneath the skin take advantage of this down time to do some much-needed maintenance. Even the brain seems to focus inward as neurons cycle through active and inactive periods. Why a body needs sleep probably ties in to all of the activities that happen during sleep, or maybe we sleep to prevent the effects of sleep deprivation. We certainly know more about how we sleep than why.
As people age their sleep needs change. A newborn wants about 18 hours of sleep a day, while adults need about eight (and adults with newborns would rejoice over four in a row). Individuals have their own requirements; one sibling may do fine on six hour of down time every night, while the other sibling needs eight or more. Some feel fine with far less, possibly due to genetics. If you feel awake and rested during the day after seven hours of sleep, then that is likely your optimal sleep duration.
In addition to needing a specific number of hours asleep, the human body tends to guide us into nocturnal sleep times. The infant sleep clock doesn’t really kick in until about three months of age — no news flash there to parents of newborns — and eventually settles into a regular day/night wake/sleep pattern. This sleep pattern again varies from night owls to morning birds.
Teenagers tend to straddle the divide, sleeping through half the night and a good part of the morning, unless forced out of bed by a persistent parent or alarm clock. Their body chemistry simply promotes staying up later and sleeping later than they did at a younger age.
Puberty gets part of the credit for this sleep cycle change. Melatonin, a hormone which helps control how sleepy a person feels, starts to build up late in the day for teens, one of the reasons that teens generally don’t feel tired until later at night. Several studies consistently show that teens prefer to fall asleep between 11pm and midnight. Teens generally need up to nine hours of sleep in order to feel fully rested – their optimal sleep duration.
Photo by Wikimedia user Love Krittaya
Unfortunately, their sleep biology comes in direct conflict with the school schedule. The homeroom bell at the Binghamton High School rings at 7:55, with first period starting at 8am. Binghamton students probably wake between 6:30 and 7am in order to get to school on time. This leaves most students walking in to school having slept only seven or eight hours, sometimes less.
This low-level sleep deprivation eventually takes its toll by impacting a student’s ability to learn, remember, and focus especially in the first two periods of class. Their bodies are still in biological sleep mode, which simply doesn’t promote learning. Students tend toward depression, moodiness and a lack of motivation. It might even be a culprit behind ADHD-like behavior.
A new study, published in the July issue of Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine reaffirms what previous studies have shown. Starting school just 30 minutes later (8:30 instead of 8am) dramatically improves this age group’s sleep, which then improves their mood, attentiveness and health. A private school in Rhode Island agreed to shift their academic schedule for a period of two months. (Rather than extend the length of the school day, the school shortened periods by 5 or 10 minutes.) This school population included students who live on campus and those who commute from home.
Just under 78% of the students participated in the study, with a pretty even split between male and female students. At the beginning of the study, 16% of the students managed to get at least eight hours of sleep – most got less than 7. At end of the two months, over half of the students got eight or more hours of sleep.
By starting school 30 minutes later, more than half of the students started to get near-adequate amounts of sleep.
Students came to school on-time more often, took fewer naps, felt more rested, reported less depression and irritability, and felt more motivated. The researchers also found that the later start time encouraged kids to get to sleep earlier. “Well for me,” they quote one student as saying, “ever since the 8:30 start, I have seen how much good 30 minutes of extra sleep does for me, so I have been inspired to…get an additional half hour on top of the 30 minutes.”
The research is mixed on whether shifting the school day subsequently improves school grades. It will probably take time to show a significant correlation between the two. However, if students feel better, are more alert, healthier (thus missing less school), and find themselves more motivated then it makes sense that some of that extra health an energy should bleed into their grades.
Starting school at the crack of dawn has deep roots in our culture, and perhaps just a little bit of the “well back in my day” and “kids these days don’t appreciate” may color opinion about starting school later. At the start of the Rhode Island study, the researchers faced “considerable resistance” to the adjustment by faculty and athletic coaches. By the end of the study, students and faculty overwhelmingly opted to stay with the new 8:30 time. They quote a faculty member as saying “I have found the 8:30 start to be the single most positive impact to my general quality of life at [the school] since I started 12 years ago.”
Despite the clear advantages of a small time shift, parents should not assume that school administrators will champion changing the school start times for their kids. The Archives’ editorial notes (emphasis mine) that political fear trumps research and biology:
In the 14 years since the research findings on the outcomes for a later start time were first published, many superintendents and school board members across the United States have lost their jobs as a result of contentious public meetings where people who were against the change took action to replace those in leadership positions supporting the change.”
What you can do
- Help your teens understand their sleep patterns and adjust accordingly with these tips from the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine and Stanford University.
- E-mail PTSA President Pam Hatchett-Rogers about what it would take to change Binghamton High’s start time
- Voice your support to the Board of Education.
- Encourage your teens to champion a change. (Four-minute video from one such student.)
Originally published at Examiner.com