Teens: Let Them Sleep!

Now, doctors have a message for the adults of America regarding kids: let them sleep!

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Modern day teens are tired. Why? Because they simply don’t get enough sleep.  Their bodies are programmed to go to bed much later in the evening.  So, waking up at 5:30 to start their school day and remaining alert is a near impossibility.  That’s why pediatricians are suggesting delaying the start of high school and middle school classes to at least 8:30am or later as “an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss” and the “epidemic” of delayed, insufficient, and erratic sleep patterns among the nation’s teens.

Multiple factors, “including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands,” negatively impact teens’ ability to get enough sleep.  Therefore, pushing back school start times is key to helping them achieve the optimal 8½ to 9½ hours of sleep per night, says the American Academy of Pediatrics.

For today’s teen to get an adequate amount of sleep and be up by 5:30am, s/he would have to go to bed by 9:30pm, which is extremely unrealistic, particularly when factoring in after-school activities, homework and a normal social life.  Also, most of today’s teens don’t even tire until much closer to midnight.  Shifting the standard school day to 9am would allow teens to naturally get the recommended amount of sleep per night, which in turn would increase their concentration, alertness and academic achievement.

“As adolescents go up in grade, they’re less likely with each passing year to get anything resembling sufficient sleep,” says Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics statement. “By the time they’re high school seniors, the NSF data showed they were getting less than seven hours of sleep on average.”

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Only 1 in 5 adolescents get 9 hours of sleep on school nights, while 45% sleep less than 8 hours, according to a 2006 poll by the National Sleep Foundation (NSF).

Chronic sleep loss in children and adolescents “can, without hyperbole, really be called a public health crisis,” Owens says.

Since teens frequently go to sleep later, starting their school day later could effectively eradicate teen sleep deprivation.