As a young adult myself, I know how dear and near sleep is for students, but we often take it for granted. However, after reading and hearing the seminar, “An Update on Adolescent Sleep: New Evidence Informing the Perfect Storm Model” by Stephanie J. Crowley, Amy R. Wolfson, Leila Tarokh, and Mary A. Carskadon, I realized that sleep affects our performance in school. Their research explains, as kids grow their “circadian rhythm” also changes, meaning that they don’t feel tired until later hours in the night, at the same time, the pressure of sleeping on time weans off. As their bodies are enabling them to sleep later, external factors like homework, friends, school, and screen time force them to wake up earlier. This creates a cycle of exhaustion that can negatively affect kids' performances.
Similarly, Minges and Redeker’s study, “Delayed School Start Times and Adolescent Sleep: A Systematic Review of the Experimental Evidence,” supports Crowley and her colleagues findings by focusing on one of the biggest external pressures that affects teenagers' sleep, early school times. In their research , they studied schools that start later, teenagers got significantly more amount of sleep. Students reported having less sleepiness throughout the day and less consumption of coffee. Examining both studies together we can find a correlation between the two. Changing school start times can help kids achieve better performances throughout the day.
Oftentimes teenagers are seen as bratty and ill performed. After further examining these researches we can see that kids perform the way they do, due to a poorly built system. . These studies make me wonder how much better adolescent mental health, academic performance, and overall well-being could be if school systems were designed around how teenagers actually sleep, rather than forcing them into schedules their brains are not built to handle.
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