It is no secret that High School students are not getting enough sleep. The CDC recommends that teenagers should get around eight to ten hours of sleep a night. In a 2021 study, they concluded that around 78% of high school students in Missouri got insufficient sleep.
The brain fully matures around the age of 25 which is why it is so important for teenagers to get adequate sleep. It plays a critical role in not only physical but also cognitive development. Additionally, it affects your mood, attentiveness, and decision making. On top of this, a lack of sleep in teenagers leads to increased rates of car accidents, depression, and suicide.
There are multiple reasons teenagers typically do not get enough sleep. Playing sports, working a job, and participating in extracurriculars all take up a lot of time outside of school. Oftentimes, when students get home from these activities, their day is not done, they have to handle at home responsibilities and finish homework. Another issue is the overuse of social media which reduces sleep quality because it can lead to emotional arousal and it emits blue light which has been shown to disrupt melatonin production.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC recommend that middle schools and high schools start no later than 8:30 a.m. California and Florida have already signed into law that high schools can not start before 8:30 a.m. and middle schools can not start before 8:00 a.m. The school currently starts at 8:30 a.m. which meets the bare minimum of what the AAP and CDC recommend, it is also ahead of many schools in Missouri and within the Saint Louis area. The school is unique compared to most schools because we have students who travel from all over the Saint Louis region; this makes travel times vary from around five minutes to an hour and dependent on traffic conditions. Due to these circumstances the school should start every day no later than 9:00 a.m; this will not only make the school more attractive to those who live far, but it will also allow for students to get the right amount of sleep.
Some people may argue that pushing back the start time will not prepare students for the workforce. Why should we be preparing 14 to 18 year olds for waking up like a middle aged man or woman, when they should be focusing on caring for and developing the person you are now. Multiple studies have found that a teenager’s circadian rhythm has a sleep phase delay; this is because the hormone melatonin sets in late, typically causing teenagers to get tired two hours later than a typical person would. A common argument is that if you start later, students will stay up later. There is overwhelming research that proves this statement is not true. Will some students stay up later, maybe, but late starts allow the large majority of students to get the needed amount of sleep.
Ultimately, getting the right amount of sleep starts with the students, who must take responsibility for their own sleep schedule. If society is able to help these students who are naturally prone to staying up later and waking up later, why would they not. Especially since studies have shown when school start times get pushed back, attendance goes up, grades go up, students behave better, and teen car crashes go down.
