Why Schools Should Start Later Essay

605 Words2 Pages

70% of high school students, like you and me, are sleep deprived; this means getting less than 7 hours of sleep. The teenage body needs relevant to 8 to 10 hours of sleep because the body is going through an important stage of growth and development. We get this sleep at delayed hours, like 11 p.m. and 12 a.m., due to chemical imbalance during our teenage years. In behalf of this delayed balance and early rising for school purposes, the body and brain are negatively impacted. The only known solution to this epidemic is schools having a later start time. Schools should start later because it could eliminate mental disorders and improve health, causing classroom grades to exceed. As a teenager, when it comes to sleep, our brains work much differently. Before puberty, the brain creates a sleep-inducing hormone, melatonin, around the hours of 8 and 9 p.m. With the information above in consideration, how much sleep do you think the average teenager going through puberty gets? Nationwide Children’s Hospital says the average teenager gets roughly 7 hours of sleep or less when they need 9 or more. During puberty, though, the teenage brain is on a delayed schedule, not kicking in with the melatonin until around 11 …show more content…

While I was in middle school, sixth grade to be exact, I stayed up countless nights overstressing and over complicating work that was visibly easy. This on top of cheer, and cross country, and theater, I was flushed. These over stressed nights led me to become depressed, which led me to lose an enormous amount of weight. Due to sleep deprivation, many teens like myself, have had or currently have mental disorders or struggle with everyday activities; the lack of sleep in a teen causes mental illnesses like depression or anxiety. These illnesses then lead to dropping grades and uncontrollable weight gain or loss. In the long run, sleep deprivation has many negative

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