I’m sure that plenty of students hate getting up in the morning and yawning throughout the day. Based on a report by the National Sleep Association, teens require at least eight to ten hours of sleep every night. They also stated that roughly 15 percent of teens get eight or more hours of sleep on school nights. Getting enough sleep is hard enough with the endless amounts of homework and various extracurricular activities, but this organization says that during adolescence it is natural for people not to be able to sleep before 11 p.m.

As a student myself I can agree that going to bed before then can sometimes be difficult. Having to wake up at the un-godly hour of 6:30 every morning I usually only receive a little more than seven hours of sleep per night. This number generally is not great for my (or anyone’s) health.

The study lists many consequences of not getting enough sleep, such as: limiting peoples’ ability to learn, listen, concentrate and solve problems. This makes people more prone to pimples, and causes people to eat too much, or eat unhealthy foods that lead to weight gain.

Students can easily avoid these problems if schools started an hour or two later. The National Sleep Association says that a solution to reducing all of the issues is to make schools start later, to allow students to receive the amount of the sleep they require to function properly. When Jackson Hole High School shifted its start time to 8:55 a.m., the number of car crashes involving teenage drivers dropped by 70 percent.

Another survey showed that switching middle school start times by 30 minutes or more  after 8 a.m. was associated with increased math and reading test scores.

Personally if schools started later I (and all students) would be able to sleep in, learn much better, and and have a physically (and mentally), healthier body.

By: James Garvey