Pediatricians Calling For Help For Sleepy Students

By Dan Peterson, TeamSnap's Sports Science Expert

Early to bed, early to rise makes a high school student healthy, less cranky and hopefully a little more wise. Despite this simple nugget of common sense, most parents of teenagers know the battle of getting them to bed at a decent hour (“But I’m not tired!”), then dragging them out of bed in the morning (“Okay, Okay, I’m up!”) First, there’s our assumption that teen sleep cycles are identical to adults. Second, there’s adolescent distractions of homework, sports, friends, and electronic attention-grabbers. Either way, the result is a nation of sleepy students who risk poor grades, accidents and a stressful zombie lifestyle. New research confirms that lack of rest can affect school performance, and pediatricians believe that school start times may contribute to the problem.

A recent survey by the National Sleep Foundation discovered that 59% of 6th through 8th grade students, along with 87% of high school students, were getting fewer than the recommended 9 hours of sleep on school nights.

“Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents is one of the most common - and easily fixable - public health issues in the U.S. today,” said pediatrician Judith Owens, MD, FAAP. 

“The research is clear that adolescents who get enough sleep have a reduced risk of being overweight or suffering depression, are less likely to be involved in automobile accidents, and have better grades, higher standardized test scores and an overall better quality of life. Studies have shown that delaying early school start times is one key factor that can help adolescents get the sleep they need to grow and learn.”

Indeed, an estimated 40% of high schools in the U.S. currently start their day before 8 am while only 15% begin after 8:30 am. Most middle schools start by 8 am with more than 20% starting before 7:45am. The usual reason for this is a shared bus system for a school district. The same set of busses and drivers need to pick up high school, middle school, and elementary school students, so let the youngest kids sleep the longest and make the teenagers get out of bed.