Later School Start Time

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In young adults, school can be a very stressful part of the day that is only exaggerated by an early school start time. The most important factors when going to school is to be alert, and to be able to focus on the task at hand. A lack of sleep makes this difficult to happen. The question of whether or not school start times should be changed to a later time has been a topic of debate for a while, with studies written about the pros and cons. With an earlier start students can be effected by decreased brain performance and learning from before 10am, less sleep that leads to negative effects, and stress due to homework. A later school start time would counter all these negatives of starting at an earlier time, and allow for a much more productive …show more content…

Secondary school requires a lot of focus and without resting the brain, the ability to focus on study dwindles. A lack of sleep can cause serious problems when it comes to concentrating. Weight gain can occur due to using less energy for tasks, thanks to the slower metabolism sleep loss causes. Drug use is also a factor of sleep loss in teenagers, as it has been seen that teenagers who are sleep deprived have a greater chance of using drugs. CASAColumbia found that secondary school students who slept less than 8 hours a night had a 22% chance of using tobacco vs 15% on students who slept more. This also occurs for alcohol with a 46% chance for sleep deprived students to drink, vs a 34% chance with students who slept more. Studies from the CDC reflect this, and have shown that ‘Insufficient sleep is common among high school students and is associated with several health risks such as being overweight, drinking alcohol, smoking tobacco, and using drugs – as well as poor academic performance’. With a time change to 10am, students are easily able to get the correct amount of sleep, even with study late into the

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