Later start to school day would benefit teenagers, research shows
One extra hour of sleep a day could improve attendance and lower school dropout rates, and even reduce car crashes among adolescents
If you thought trying to get a sleepy teenager out of bed in time for school each morning was your own private struggle, you thought wrong.
The American Academy of Paediatrics declared the chronic sleepiness of teenagers a public health issue in a policy statement on Monday. And to help fix the problem, the organisation called for US middle and high schools to push back their start times 30 minutes to an hour to allow students to get more rest.
"A substantial body of research has now demonstrated that delaying school start times is an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss," the organisation said. "The American Academy of Paediatrics strongly supports the efforts of school districts to optimise sleep in students."
Sleep deprivation in teenagers is widespread. Eighty-seven per cent of high school students in the US are getting less than the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep, and final-year high school students get less than seven hours of sleep a night, on average, the AAP says.
In addition, 28 per cent of high school pupils report falling asleep at school at least once a week, while one in five say they fall asleep doing homework with similar frequency.
The exhaustion has serious consequences. The AAP reports that the average teenager in the US regularly experiences levels of sleepiness similar to people with sleep disorders such as narcolepsy. Adolescents are also at higher risk for car accidents resulting from drowsy driving. And, as many of us know from personal experience, lack of sleep affects mood, attention, memory and behaviour control.