Importance of Pushing Back School Times

Hey everyone!

Welcome to today’s blog post. We wanted to discuss why it is important to push back school times to promote better sleep schedules and cycles.

• The internal sleep clock shifts to a later bedtime during the teen years, causing a release of melatonin later at night for adolescents during their teen years.

• This creates a shift in the internal sleep clock to allow teens to fall asleep later at night and wake up later in the morning.

• Melatonin production: Its production increases at night to promote healthy sleep while orienting the circadian rhythm. (It is a natural hormone that is produced by the pineal gland, prompted by darkness.)

In fact, based on this system, we looked into current statistics to determine how students would benefit from delayed start times. Unfortunately, there are some appalling statistics on how the brain is impacted by early school start times.

• Only 26% of youth get 8 or more hours of sleep on an average school night.

• Reports of getting 8 or more hours of sleep decrease substantially as students get older, from 36% in 9th grade to 13% in 12th grade.

Through these statistics, it is now more important than ever to push back our school start times for schools throughout the globe.

See you next time,

Nandita and Sri