Abstract
A lack of sleep in today’s adolescent population in the United States is causing a decline in students' wellbeing and academic performance. This paper notes how early school start times impact students negatively as a primary reason for this decline. Early school start time affects students' learning, performance, and affects both physical and mental health due to a lack of sleep. Early start times counteract adolescents' natural circadian rhythms. Studies show multiple findings supporting the effects of chronic sleep deprivation during the school year as they are unable to catch up on lost sleep at a later time. Although some might suggest having extra time would lead to students misusing that time, studies suggest otherwise. Delaying school start times even by as little as 50 minutes has a drastic improvement in academic performance and overall wellbeing. This paper uses various pieces of literature to support this conclusion. Many studies point to insufficient sleep causing the decline of adolescent students in the United States.
Introduction
Ming et al. (2011) found adequate sleep is vital for healthy living and it is important for learning, performance, and both physical and mental health. However, many adolescents do not attain these health and learning benefits due to a lack of sleep. “59% of sixth- through eighth-graders and 87% of high school students in the United States were getting less than the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep on school nights”. ("School Start Times for Adolescents,” 2014, para. 4). This means that a lack of sleep is widespread among students in the US and there must be a way to address this. This leads to the research question of “How do early school start times hurt students?” Although there have been many studies suggesting the decline of students in the United States, they all seem to come to the same conclusion that insufficient sleep is harmful to adolescents. This paper presents a solution to this issue, examining the impact of insufficient sleep on school students nationwide.
Literature Review
Previous literature establishes that students struggle with insufficient sleep during the school year, mainly due to early school start times. Teenagers require about 9 hours of sleep nightly, but they only average 6-7 hours of sleep (Ming et al, 2011). The sleep deficit that students have causes physical and physiological consequences, such as higher rates of obesity, chronic pain, gastrointestinal issues, and heightened irritability (Paiva et al., 2015).
Additionally, sleep deprivation affects cognitive functioning and academic performance. For example, students who only slept for 4-5 hours of sleep struggled to comprehend abstract concepts, experience feeling sleepy during the day, and display reduced focus compared to peers with 10 hours of sleep (Curcio et al., 2006). This decline in academics is proportional to sleep until adequate sleep has been reached. Every hour of nightly sleep relates directly to a 0.07 decrease in a student’s GPA with the most severe damage occurring when sleep drops below six hours (Creswell et al., 2023).
Puberty shifts the adolescent circadian rhythm to favor deep sleep between 11 PM and 7 AM, also causes students to want to sleep later due to different cycles of melatonin release (Carrell et al., 2011). Early school schedules force students to interrupt this natural cycle, causing extreme fatigue and increasing public safety risks like adolescent car crashes in both the morning and at night (Alfonsi et al., 2020). To combat this issue, many pieces of literature call for delaying school schedules. Delaying start times by just 50 minutes significantly boosts student energy, alertness, and overall grades (Carrell et al., 2011; Hansen et al., 2005). Furthermore, shifting these schedules yields systemic benefits, including increased sleep duration that align more with natural Circadian rhythms, better attendance, and fewer vehicular accidents (Wheaton et al., 2016). While existing literature thoroughly documents the damages of sleep deprivation and the broad benefits of later start times, there remains a need to synthesize these findings into an actionable policy framework. This paper addresses this gap by synthesizing evidence from previous literature to propose a structured, logistically viable solution for schools.
Body
Currently, chronically sleep deprived students have various adverse health outcomes that can lead to immediate physical ailments such as fatigue, neck and back pain, obesity, and elevated blood pressure (Alfonsi et al., 2020). Beyond physical health, sustained sleep loss can also compromise mental well-being by elevating stress levels and increasing the risk of depression and anxiety (Adolescent Sleep Working Group [ASWG], 2014). The overall wellbeing and happiness of students and daily mood is affected as well because they also have less time to participate in activities to counteract these adverse health conditions thus, implementing a systemic solution is necessary.
Additionally, sleep deprived students struggle with their grades and other academic measurable metrics. For instance, students who have an early first period class often earn lower grades than students who do not have an early first period class (Carrell et al, 2011). This explains how earlier start times are directly correlated with worse grades for students. Students with earlier school start times tend to do worse in school, are more likely to fall asleep in class, and have trouble concentrating and focusing in class (Curcio et al., 2006). Clearly, students are less likely be mentally present, easily distracted and have less grasping power during the class period and thus yielding to low retention of materials presented during the class period. To combat this, students would have to spend more time struggling to succeed at these classes that could be done in less time with proper sleep. Thus leading to a spiraling scenario of wasting precious time at school as it is unproductive, spending extra time after school catching up studies and even less time spent sleeping.
A potential solution to the lack of sleep for adolescents is moving school start times later by 50 minutes. Delaying start times by just 50 minutes significantly boosts student energy levels, alertness, and overall grades (Carrell et al., 2011; Hansen et al., 2005). Increasing alertness and energy could lead to further learning, enthusiasm to learn more and have a better overall assessment of life in general. Also, students attending schools with later starting times report that they sleep longer, feel more refreshed in the mornings, experience less daytime fatigue, and are less depressed (Carrell et al., 2011). Attendance rates improved, and also reported higher standardized testing grades in school with later school start times despite larger class sizes. Equivalent academic results were noted in schools with earlier start times by reducing class sizes by one-third (ASWG, 2014). Clearly, both learning and attendance improve with later school start times as less students skip the earlier class leading to more successful outcomes, better memory retention and being able to understand the materials faster.
Counterarguments/Limitations
Those expressing opposition to this solution may claim that later start times mean that students are less likely to go to bed, rather they would use the extra time in unproductive activities. However, in reality high school students who slept an additional 35 minutes, on average, and experienced less daytime sleepiness after their school start time was delayed from 7:35 to 8:15 am (ASWG, 2014). Clearly, students do take advantage of the later start time and get additional sleep. Another argument against making later school start times is an issue with transportation for families. A potential solution to this issue could be swapping bus routes with local elementary schools in order to accommodate later bell schedules for middle and high schools students. Driving at a later start time would be safer as well due to traffic reduction.
Some constraints in this study are that grades are not always proportionally increased due to different types of student backgrounds and learning aptitude, teachers with different teaching styles and methods of grading, class size and variations in course rigor. This could potentially lead to skewed analysis of data that measure the success of having later school start times.
Discussion
Some implications of this research are that sleep correlates with overall better health, increased information retention and learning which is evident in students academic performance and is a significant marker of health for adolescent populations. Sleep has many benefits and with the help of later school start times, students who sleep more are also able to be more productive and efficient during the day. This paper helps to support the introduction of later school start times in order to benefit students. This adds broader relevance to public health for adolescents as sleep insufficiency is currently a public health crisis in the younger population. Further research could compare American students with those from other countries and compare their sleeping habits.
Conclusion
Based on the facts presented in this paper, it is clear that adequate sleep plays a significant role in a student's overall health, academic performance and learning aptitude. They would feel more rested, have better perception of life and feel less stress. Having later school start times has significant benefits and should be recognized for being a viable solution for better student performance as it makes students more productive and efficient without feeling drained all the time at such a young age. Although there have been many studies suggesting the decline of students in the United States, they all seem to come to the same conclusion that insufficient sleep is harmful to adolescents. Thus a call to action is necessary to have later school start times.
References
Adolescent Sleep Working Group, Committee on Adolescence, & Council on School Health (2014). School start times for adolescents. Pediatrics, 134(3), 642–649. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-1697
Alfonsi, V., Scarpelli, S., D’Atri, A., Stella, G., & De Gennaro, L. (2020). Later School Start Time: The Impact of Sleep on Academic Performance and Health in the Adolescent Population. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(7), 2574. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17072574
Carrell, S. E., Maghakian, T., & West, J. E. (2011, August). A’s from Zzzz’s? the causal effect of school start time on the academic achievement of Adolescents - American Economic Association. American Economic Association. https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.3.3.62
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Curcio, G., Ferrara, M., & De Gennaro, L. (2006). Sleep loss, learning capacity and academic performance. Science Direct. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1087079205001231#section-cited-by
Hansen, M., Janssen, I., Schiff, A., Zee, P. C., & Dubocovich, M. L. (2005, June 1). The impact of School Daily Schedule on Adolescent Sleep | Pediatrics | American Academy of Pediatrics. American Academy of Pediatrics. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/115/6/1555/67418/The-Impact-of-School-Daily-Schedule-on-Adolescent
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Wheaton, A. G., Chapman, D. P., & Croft, J. B. (2016). School Start Times, Sleep, Behavioral, Health, and Academic Outcomes: A Review of the Literature. J School Health, 86: 363-381. https://doi.org/10.1111/josh.12388
