Studies About Later School Start Times May Be ‘Weak,’ But Move Likely Would Help Teens Sleep Better
DEC 27, 2016 @ 09:57 AM | Rita Rubin , CONTRIBUTOR
If you have teenagers in your house like I do, you probably haven’t seen much of them before noon during winter break.
That’s because they’re luxuriating in the freedom to sleep past dawn.
“It has been increasingly recognized that high school students get less sleep than is recommended,” write the authors of a review article in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.
No duh!
They have to get up so darn early these days. Anecdotal information suggests high schools start earlier than they did back in the day (i.e., when their parents or grandparents were in high school), the authors write. My younger daughter, a high school senior, has to catch a 7 a.m. bus–20 minutes later than she did as a sophomore, thanks to a grassroots campaign for later start times, but, given how tired she is by the time Friday rolls around, still too early.
The new review article, written by representatives of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Sleep Research Society and the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine (I had never heard of that group, but, according to its website, its members are dentists who treat “sleep-disordered breathing,” namely snoring and obstructive sleep apnea, with appliances that patients wear in their mouths while asleep) agrees with me.
“The really clear thing is that when we look at the studies that are available, they all kind of head in the same direction: A later start time is better,” coauthor Dr. Timothy Morgenthaler, past president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., told me. Morgenthaler and his coauthors noted that chronic sleep loss in adolescents has been linked to physical problems such as obesity, mental health problems such as anxiety, poorer grades and safety issues, such as a greater risk of car crashes.
