School Start Times and the Sleep–Wake Cycle of Adolescents (original) (raw)
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International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2020
The crucial role of sleep in physical and mental health is well known, especially during the developmental period. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in examining the relationship between sleep patterns and school performance in adolescents. At this stage of life, several environmental and biological factors may affect both circadian and homeostatic regulation of sleep. A large part of this population does not experience adequate sleep, leading to chronic sleep restriction and/or disrupted sleep–wake cycles. Studies investigating the effects of different sleep–wake schedules on academic achievement showed that impaired sleep quality and quantity are associated with decreased learning ability and compromised daytime functioning. This review focuses on the most recent studies that evaluated the effects of modified school start time on sleep patterns and related outcomes. Moreover, based on the available empirical evidence, we intend to propose a direction for future st...
Sleep
Over the last 25 years, we have developed a clear understanding of the implications of early school start times for delayed and insufficient sleep for adolescents and, in turn, the consequences include daytime sleepiness, challenges to academic performance, increased automobile accidents, substance use, emotional instability, and health concerns including weight gain and obesity [1-6]. Likewise, increasingly, researchers, educators, health care providers, secondary school administrators, and families are collaborating on research, policy changes, and the practical work needed to carefully consider how to effectively implement such a countermeasure to insufficient sleep: later school start times for middle and high school-age adolescents (e.g. Refs. 7-10). Since Carskadon and colleagues' landmark study [11] demonstrating that adolescents' biological sleep-wake schedules are constrained by early school start times, three recent systematic reviews and a recent special issue on school start times in Sleep Health capture the body of work, to date, on school start times and adolescents' sleep [8, 12-14]. Taking these reviews together, there is significant evidence that delaying start times at the middle and high school level increases school-night sleep duration by at least 30 min, primarily by delaying rise times, and that later start times generally correspond to improved attendance, lower tardiness records, better grades, improved mood, decreased school health center/ nurse's office visits, and fewer motor vehicle crashes [8, 12-18]. At this juncture, additional and new questions arise regarding the effectiveness of delaying school start time for adolescents' sleep and other outcomes including cultural nuances and differences, sustained benefits, role of sleep knowledge and hygiene, and a range of implementation and assessment questions that are particularly relevant to policy and education experts and researchers. Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of school start time outcome studies, to date, were convenience studies, utilized self-reported sleep patterns and other variables, and were conducted in the United States [12-19].
Adolescent Sleep Patterns, Circadian Timing, and Sleepiness at a Transition to Early School Days
2000
ADOLESCENTS STAY UP LATER than preteens and show a marked delay in spontaneous morning arousal. Most reports acknowledge that this pattern is widespread, if not universal, and commonly ascribe it to psychosocial factors that achieve increasing salience in adolescence. For example, with maturation comes an increased desire for independence, greater social opportunities, enhanced response to peer pressure, perhaps more academic responsibilities, more possibilities for extracurricular activities and sports, andin the USmore time spent working for pay. 8 Many of these phenomena promote a delay in the timing of sleep.
Nature and Science of Sleep, 2020
In adolescence, physiological (circadian and homeostatic regulation of sleep) and social habits contribute to delayed sleep onset, while social obligations impose early sleep offset. The effects of delayed school start time on the subjective/objective measures of sleepwake patterns and academic achievement have not been established. Methods: This pre-, post-, and longitudinal non-randomized study included an early (8:00 AM; ESC=30 students) and the late (9:00 AM; LSC=21 students) start class. Multiple sleep data included a weekly sleep diary, Karolinska Sleepiness Scale, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and Epworth Sleepiness Scale. Sustained attention was measured using the Psychomotor Vigilance Task. Academic performance was evaluated by two different mathematical and scientific standard tests (entrance and final) and by school attendance indicators. Data were collected at monthly intervals from October 2018 to May 2019 and the beginning and end of the academic year (pre/post). Results: All students turned their lights off at similar times (LSC=11:21PM, ESC=11:11PM), but LSC students woke up later (7:23AM) than ESC students (6:55AM; F 1,48 =11.81, p=0.001) on school days. The groups did not differ in total sleep duration on non-school days. Longitudinal measures revealed a significant increase (8.9%, 34 min) in total sleep duration of LSC students across the academic year. ESC students maintained approximately the same sleep duration. Furthermore, changes in sleep duration had parallelled significant differences in sustained attention, with LSC students outperforming ESC students. Longitudinal changes of sleep and sustained attention were associated with a coherent pattern of changes in academic performance. Conclusion: Findings indicate that a one-hour delay in school start time is associated with longer sleep, better diurnal sustained attention, attendance, and improved academic performance. Notably, sleep changes were limited to school days. A delay in school start time should be seriously considered to improve sleep and academic achievements of students.
The Impact of School Daily Schedule on Adolescent Sleep
Pediatrics, 2005
Objectives. This study was initiated to examine the impact of starting school on adolescent sleep, to compare weekday and weekend sleep times, and to attempt to normalize the timing of the circadian sleep/wake cycle by administering bright light in the morning. This was a collaborative project involving high school students and their parents, as well as high school and university faculty members, for the purpose of contributing information to the scientific community while educating students about research processes and their own sleep/wake cycles and patterns. Methods. Sixty incoming high school seniors kept sleep/wake diaries beginning in August and continuing through 2 weeks after the start of school in September. Sleep diaries were also kept for 1 month in November and 1 month in February. Early-morning light treatments were given to 19 students in the last 2 weeks of November and the last 2 weeks of February. Neuropsychologic performance was measured with computer-administered ...
Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2017
During adolescence, internal circadian rhythms and biological sleep drive change to result in later sleep and wake times. As a result of these changes, early middle school and high school start times curtail sleep, hamper a student's preparedness to learn, negatively impact physical and mental health, and impair driving safety. Furthermore, a growing body of evidence shows that delaying school start times positively impacts student achievement, health, and safety. Public awareness of the hazards of early school start times and the benefits of later start times are largely unappreciated. As a result, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine is calling on communities, school boards, and educational institutions to implement start times of 8:30 am or later for middle schools and high schools to ensure that every student arrives at school healthy, awake, alert, and ready to learn.
School start times for adolescents
Pediatrics, 2014
The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes insufficient sleep in adolescents as an important public health issue that significantly affects the health and safety, as well as the academic success, of our nation's middle and high school students. Although a number of factors, including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands, negatively affect middle and high school students' ability to obtain sufficient sleep, the evidence strongly implicates earlier school start times (ie, before 8:30 am) as a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep, as well as circadian rhythm disruption, in this population. Furthermore, a substantial body of research has now demonstrated that delaying school start times is an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss and has a wide range of potential benefits to students with regard to physical and mental health, safety, and academic achievement. The American Academy of Pediatrics strong...
Middle School Start Times: The Importance of a Good Night's Sleep for Young Adolescents
Behavioral Sleep Medicine, 2007
With the onset of adolescence, teenagers require 9.2 hr of sleep and experience a delay in the timing of sleep. In the "real world" with early school start times, however, they report less sleep, striking differences between their school-weekend sleep schedules, and significant daytime sleepiness. Prior studies demonstrated that high schoolers with later school starts do not further delay bedtimes but obtain more sleep due to later wake times. This study examined sleep-wake patterns of young adolescents attending urban, public middle schools with early (7:15 a.m.