Another morning waking up exhausted. If sleep is essential to survival, why are we the only age group forced to compromise our sleep schedules? We’re overworked, exhausted and constantly running on empty. Why?
The world is structured around adult schedules, not our natural sleep rhythms, and teens are the ones losing sleep over it. It’s like our entire schedule is built to work against us.
Early school start times have shown a detrimental impact to teens’ necessary functions throughout the day because it interferes with their natural circadian rhythms.
For some background: Circadian rhythms are basically internal body clocks. They naturally shift later during adolescence – making it hard to fall asleep early and wake up early. This means that most teens won’t start feeling tired until late at night.
This isn’t due to irresponsibility or lack of motivation, it’s just how our brains work. Still, we’re expected to wake up super early for school and be operative like everything is fine. It’s not fine. Early school times simply don’t match this natural shift.
In a common teenager’s schedule, school, work, extracurriculars and homework all compete for time. When there are many things to do in a day but not enough time to complete everything, sleep is usually the first thing teens choose to sacrifice from their schedule. This has led to sleep debt; not getting enough sleep, leading to a disruption in daily functioning. This is a public health epidemic that affects all teenagers with many negative effects.
As someone who seriously struggles with mornings, waking up early is the hardest part of my day. I’m constantly running late to school, not because I’m taking my sweet time, but because dragging myself out of bed is a battle.
And once I finally get to class, it’s just monotony. I’m there, but my brain is still trying to catch up. Something that really worries me is that I’ve noticed my memory isn’t as sharp when I don’t get enough sleep. Which makes sense – sleep is when your brain consolidates information.
If I’m studying hard but not sleeping enough, there’s a chance all that effort is going to waste. What’s the point in staying up late if I’m not going to remember it the next day? The system keeps acting like teens can just go to bed earlier and suck it up to power through the day exhausted. We’re people, not machines. Sleep is not optional for teens.
Being a high school student is very tedious and requires a lot of hard work and focus. Sleep deprivation affects mood issues, lowers focus, worse grades and even physical health problems. Schedules get pushed later and later, creating a cycle of constant exhaustion.
Teens are overworked not only from school, but from being out of sync with their biology. Schools (and adults in general) should adjust their expectations to fit teen sleep needs. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that high school should start no later than 8:30 a.m., in consideration of teens’ sleep needs. More awareness alone on this issue would also be extremely helpful, just knowing that sleep isn’t laziness – it’s a health need.
