[HN Gopher] Later school start times are associated with more sl...
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Later school start times are associated with more sleep and better
performance
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 150 points
Date : 2020-02-20 20:22 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (advances.sciencemag.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (advances.sciencemag.org)
| zacharycohn wrote:
| My high school started at 7:17am and I would have given
| _anything_ for a 9am, or even an 8am, start time.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| 7:17am? Really? Not 7:15am, not 7:30am?
| paulcarroty wrote:
| My head just can't operate on max level at morning for years. "go
| to bed earlier" isn't helpful here, working at nights too. Tried
| several times to change my owl-type nature, but without any
| viable success. The fix is easy: pretend to be productive, and be
| a rock star at the end of day.
| petercooper wrote:
| I think it applies to adults just as much, except most adults
| "get used to it". So at my company we've always started the day
| at 10am and everyone cites it as one of the things they like the
| most about working here (we then end at 5.30pm - which also works
| out well as all the 5pm rush traffic has cleared up by then).
| James_Henry wrote:
| I would like to point out that this is part of the reason that
| daylight savings time (not just the clock changes associated with
| daylight savings time) is so dangerous. This is one thing that a
| state could do today to implement a change for the better: outlaw
| daylight savings time, giving teenagers and children (not to
| mention adults) another hour to sleep for much of the year.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| I vehemently disagree with this. The problem is that there are
| only 24 hours in the day. That's just not enough time to go to
| school, sleep 9.25 hours (recommended for teens, as I've been
| told), and still participate in sports, do homework, and (god
| forbid) play video games.
|
| This would only move the problem later, not solve it. Even worse,
| parents would have to move around their own work schedules to get
| kids to school on time. The real problem, in my opinion, is the
| massive unchecked amounts of homework that get piled on students
| every year. Each teacher thinks that their amount of homework is
| reasonable but it only takes one bad teacher to cripple a kid's
| schedule. Writing a 5-6 page paper in middle school never taught
| anyone anything, but it did take away time that could have been
| used constructively.
| Youden wrote:
| > This would only move the problem later, not solve it.
|
| And for teens, that would be a huge improvement. Their sleep
| schedules are biologically offset to be about 2 hours later
| than and adult's [0] so the different between having to wake up
| at say 08:30 instead of 07:30 is the equivalent, for an adult,
| to waking up at 06:30 instead of 05:30.
|
| > The problem is that there are only 24 hours in the day.
|
| That's also a problem but it's a different problem. Even if we
| reduce the workload, sleep still can't be healthy because
| teenagers are being forced to consistently wake up at
| biologically unnatural times.
|
| [0]: https://www.uclahealth.org/sleepcenter/sleep-and-teens
| James_Henry wrote:
| What is the "this" that you don't agree with? The theorized
| causality? It's not a question of whether the kids in the
| Seattle study slept more or not. They did sleep more. The
| question is why, and I think most people agree that it is
| clearly because of the later school start time.
| potatoz2 wrote:
| There's a study that indicates that your theory is either
| incorrect or incomplete, as grades improved with a 1 hour delay
| in school start time. What part of the study do you not find
| convincing?
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| What do you disagree with? This is something that actually
| happened. They changed start times and the students slept more.
| acchow wrote:
| Students being given too much homework is a separate issue.
|
| Students' circadian rhythm is shifted later compared to adults.
| Why shouldn't we let them sleep later? Why do you disagree with
| this?
| NieDzejkob wrote:
| As a datapoint, I once wrote a paper for biology and learned
| about the existence of salt-rising bread [0], a bread leavened
| by hydrogen instead of the usual carbon dioxide, with a
| bacteria known for food poisoning as the rising agent [1]. It
| is just trivia, of course, though...
|
| [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt-rising_bread
|
| [1]: https://www.popsci.com/article/science/clostridium-it-can-
| ki...
| BlameKaneda wrote:
| I used to wake up around 6:30-40 for a 7:55 start time. I didn't
| officially "wake up" until after 9:30 or so.
|
| The high school juniors had statewide exams every year so the
| rest of the high schoolers got to go in after 9/9:30. I woke up
| much more well-rested and oddly enough, I felt happier. I really
| wished that a later start time was the norm.
|
| I doubt it'll be, since one of the reasons why schools start
| early is due to parents' schedules, but who knows.
| jxy wrote:
| This is ridiculous. What has anything of these to do with time?
| If you live at the east coast of the US, just set your time to
| GMT, and you can enjoy waking up at noon.
|
| We need a culture of encouraging school student to go to sleep
| early and wake up early, and not overtaxing their health by
| staying up late and wasting time.
| goatlover wrote:
| Nah, we need a culture that utilizes the best data and adjusts
| for that, not some preconceived notion about when everyone
| should be waking up and being productive.
| noodle_face_ wrote:
| how about a culture that understands people are just
| different, and all of them will likely wake up at different
| times
| crooked-v wrote:
| Teenagers are biologically driven to stay up late and wake up
| late, as shown in studies of sleep schedules in laboratory
| conditions:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2820578/
|
| > Adolescents continue to show a delayed circadian (or internal
| clock) phase as indicated by daily endocrine rhythms even after
| several weeks of regulated schedules that allow for sufficient
| sleep. This delay is maintained under controlled laboratory
| conditions in which there is limited possibility for social
| influence.
| rstupek wrote:
| The article discusses that circadian rhythms in teens changes
| such that later sleep is normal
| acchow wrote:
| You are ignoring the sun.
| pneill wrote:
| I never buy these stories. Why is it that an 18 year old high
| school student has trouble getting up and off to school by 7:30/
| 8:00 am, but an 18 year old marine has no problems getting up at
| 4:30 am?
| brlewis wrote:
| > an 18 year old marine has no problems getting up at 4:30
|
| Define "no problems"
|
| Also, most high school students are under 18.
| bilbyx wrote:
| How about just get kids to go to bed earlier?
| justwalt wrote:
| I'm sure someone has previously had the thought.
| lbrdn wrote:
| Why We Sleep is a good book on this topic and addresses many of
| the comments and concerns in this thread.
| James_Henry wrote:
| It's an entertaining book, and I like some of the things that
| it is trying to do, but it has some issues that it really
| shouldn't have.
|
| https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| "Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific
| and Factual Errors"
|
| Thanks for posting this (upvoted you).
|
| I was just about to order that book, but I usually research
| critiques of the book before buying it. I found yours here
| just because I'm the original poster (OP) and was reading
| through comments.
|
| I am not going to buy the book, at least for now. Thanks
| again.
|
| Edit: There's also a HN thread about the blog post that you
| shared [0].
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850
| cryptozeus wrote:
| I have always had noon school..so the timings were from 10-5 pm.
| Many of my friends had morning school from 7-3 pm. I do not see
| any difference in sleep or performance due to this.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| And yet, school start times won't change.
| James_Henry wrote:
| They have changed already in some districts. If you want them
| to change, you can help inform the public in your area and work
| to legislate something healthier for our children.
| aswanson wrote:
| School time is optimized for adult conveinience, not child/teen
| learning.
| roguecoder wrote:
| It's a matter of incomplete metrics. What impact do later
| school start times have on parents? How about parents'
| workplaces, especially for shift work? Regulatory capture means
| convenience for businesses is likely to trump children's health
| and performance.
| ixwt wrote:
| I feel it's also a bit about perspective. Is school for
| learning, or is it a state sponsored day care with a guise of
| learning? Especially in the early years.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| We ask schools to be all things for all people, so it is,
| of course, both and neither.
| jkmcf wrote:
| FWIW, my Colorado district's high schools are going to start
| class around 9 to 9:30-ish next year (proposed, at least) all
| based around research like this.
| brlewis wrote:
| A high school educator once told me that the impetus for the
| early schedule was businesses who wanted teens to be able to work
| for them in the afternoon.
| ch wrote:
| And yet work start times won't adjust.
| deepsun wrote:
| A big problem here in US is kids logistics -- parents spend way
| too much time getting their kids somewhere and back.
|
| In Eastern Europe I remember parents just told me to not forget
| about pool after school, so I get on the bus and went 6 stops to
| the pool after school myself.
|
| That only worked since age of 8 for me, of course, before that
| logistics was probably a problem for my parents as well.
| dqpb wrote:
| There are so many ways in which school is not optimized for
| learning.
| tartoran wrote:
| As a kid I remember waking up at 7 and heading to class which was
| starting at 8. I was half awake up until about 10 in the morning,
| I don't know how I was making it to school in one piece (school
| was within walking distance and was about 15 minutes from home).
| Also, in the winter at 7 it was still dark and cold I still
| remember the a magnetic force I had to fight away from the warm
| cozy bed. That was me at the time. A group of kids didn't seem to
| have this problem at all, so this early sleepiness phenomena is
| not universal. Throughout my life I was also a night owl, my most
| productive and creative moments took place after dark. Recently,
| however, something changed. I feel much more comfortable in the
| morning, I even enjoy the quiet hours early in the morning until
| things start to hustle and bustle and enjoy and am able to go to
| sleep earlier.
|
| So to conclude, this is not a universal thing and this is the
| problem, we are all different so a one sized solution does both
| good and bad.
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| When I went to Waterloo, most of the math classes were
| scheduled around 8:30 - 10 while most of the computer science
| classes were scheduled in the afternoon.
|
| I'm pretty sure my major would be different if I was a morning
| person.
| hinkley wrote:
| One year I had to take a class before school and by winter it
| started before sunup and it was horrible.
|
| On a handful of occasions I had a moment while washing my hair
| where I could not recall the alarm going off. I'm not sure
| anything aggravates a night owl more than discovering that they
| have accidentally gotten up early... except discovering you'd
| gotten up _four hours_ early.
|
| And then barely getting to sleep in because fixing wet bedhead
| takes almost as long as taking a shower.
|
| I did not sign up for the follow-on class.
| rebuilder wrote:
| I had the sleep schedule you describe until my first child.
| Now, I'm opportunistic. Generally I get up at 7 or so, because
| a certain someone makes sure no-one sleeps past that. It's
| fine, now. But at rare times the little one is away with
| grandparents, and then the sleep rhythm rapidly returns to
| night-owl mode.
|
| But my point is, I think maybe parents are a bit unsympathetic
| to the optimal sleep patterns of their children because those
| same children have spent years teaching the parents that sleep
| is a luxury you have limited access to.
| aswanson wrote:
| I had a split schedule in 7th and 8th grade, from 11:30am to 5
| pm. Best time of my childhood education in terms of awakeness
| and alertness. High school was the opposite, horrible, had to
| be on the bus by 6:45am. It was dark and raining/snowing
| sometimes, we hid under parapets at nearby houses sometimes for
| shelter. I remember cursing the Board of Education during those
| times, they didnt have to suffer through the stupidity of their
| decisions.
| tartoran wrote:
| Yes, I vividly remember the awful feeling when it was dark,
| cold, wet and on the way to school half asleep. We too had 2
| shifts for school, the first 4 grades were in the morning and
| then it would alternate every other grade in the morning or
| evening. I liked when I had school in the second part of the
| day but in the winter I had a nearly similar experience
| returning home, at about 6 or 7 it was already dark, cold and
| snowy. And this schedule would eat out the whole day.
| smichel17 wrote:
| Wild guess: you started waking up a more consistent time each
| day (less sleeping in on weekends). This might have been a
| result of getting more sleep on weekdays and therefore not
| feeling like you need to sleep in, or of less late night
| socializing.
|
| As someone who has run the full gamut of sleep schedules over
| different years of my life, I've found by FAR (orders of
| magnitude) the most influential factor in how I feel in the
| morning is the consistency of my wake-up time. The only factor
| that can sometimes eclipse it is extended periods of sleep
| deprivation (eg, 1-2 weeks of averaging 4 hours per night).
|
| If you want to try this, I highly recommend an alarm app for
| Android called Talalarmo -
| https://f-droid.org/app/trikita.talalarmo
| pgt wrote:
| How has your diet changed over the years? I'd be curious to
| know if different foods and eating schedules might affect
| circadian rhythm.
| James_Henry wrote:
| They do and there is quite a bit of research on it. Food is a
| major zeitgeber.
| elwell wrote:
| As someone who I think excuses his own laziness with 'being a
| night owl', I appreciate your mentioning of recently changing.
| I'm an aspiring morning person.
| [deleted]
| rconti wrote:
| This could have made my formative years immeasurably better. I
| woke up between 5:30-6am every school day between grades 6-12. I
| had an incredibly hard time focusing on and starting my homework,
| and was often up past midnight. It was a vicious cycle of not
| sleeping and depression and anxiety. Typical school hours are
| insane for the kids who need sleep the most. Even being
| chronically underslept, I'd still easily stay up until 1 or 2am
| on weekends which I'm "too old for" (read: my circadian rhythms
| have changed as I reached adulthood). As a kid, I was frequently
| sleeping till 11am or noon on weekend days to try to make up for
| it. It's just not healthy -- any of it.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Yeah, same here. I remember getting home from high school
| around 2:00 (even earlier if I didn't have a class for the 6th
| hour). I would just collapse on the couch and sleep for an
| hour. Then, of course, I'd have trouble falling asleep at
| night, leading to it being hard to get up. Lather, rinse,
| repeat.
| grs1 wrote:
| go to bed earlier.
| funklute wrote:
| The point is that there is an aspect of the circadian rhythm
| which can not be circumvented simply by going to bed earlier.
| roguecoder wrote:
| The abstract does a good job of summarizing why this matters:
| "During puberty, the adolescent circadian system naturally
| delays the onset of sleep to a later time. One reason for
| this is an apparent lengthening of the circadian period
| during the teenage years (1), which typically leads to a
| later onset of the biological night relative to the light-
| dark cycle"
| brightball wrote:
| When I was in college, the best semester I had was one in which
| my first classes every day were at 2pm.
|
| I'm pretty sure that's the best I've felt in my entire life.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| I teach at the high school level. Everyone knows this is true and
| some districts in my area are changing to a later start time;
| however, there is a great deal of institutional momentum working
| against the change. Primarily due to primary school start times,
| bussing schedules, and athletics.
| datashow wrote:
| > Primarily due to primary school start times, bussing
| schedules, and athletics.
|
| Not only that. Starting late also creates a problem for
| parents.
|
| Parents need to go to work. If kids take bus, kids usually need
| to board on the school bus before parents leave home. If
| parents drive kids to school, then the late school start time
| will become totally unacceptable for many parents because of
| the conflict with their work start time.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > kids usually need to board on the school bus before parents
| leave home
|
| Why's that?
| ydnaclementine wrote:
| To ensure your single digit aged child reaches the bus.
| Good luck trying to explain what happened if they don't.
|
| Pretty sure Otto Mann doesn't know if you're child is
| supposed to go to school today or not (scheduled absence),
| so the driver can't know to expect your child or not
| germinalphrase wrote:
| Absolutely true. Cynics often jib that school is glorified
| daycare, but it's very real that without schools many people
| would simply be unable to work. Inflexibility around parent
| work schedules is a significant factor in why later start
| times is difficult.
| toohotatopic wrote:
| This is the primary reason for an early start. Primary
| school, bussing schedules and athletics can shift.
|
| This leaves the question: why does work start so early? If
| children benefit from sleeping longer, so should adults.
| Youden wrote:
| > If children benefit from sleeping longer, so should
| adults.
|
| People at different ages require different amounts of sleep
| in order to be healthy. Adults require less than children
| [0].
|
| Also, one of the big problems for teenagers (the subject of
| the article) is that their circadian rhythm is out of phase
| from adults, shifted later about 2 hours [1]. Early start
| times don't just reduce sleep, they're also just the wrong
| time of day. Telling a teen to wake up at 7am is like
| telling an adult to wake up at 5am.
|
| [0]: https://www.cdc.gov/features/sleep/index.html
|
| [1]: https://www.uclahealth.org/sleepcenter/sleep-and-teens
| James_Henry wrote:
| It probably would be healthier for a lot of adults. They
| even find that because of set work start times, the
| average adult in the western edge of a time zone ends up
| sleeping less than the one in the eastern edge.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Yeah, it's a nice thought, but completely unworkable. I live
| 0.99 miles (seriously!) from my kids' school. The minimum bus
| distance in 1 mile - so they won't send buses to pick up my
| kids. That means that they have to walk 0.99 miles, sometimes
| in the rain, sometimes in the cold, across three fairly busy
| intersections, or I have to drive them. My commute is about
| an hour long (longer because I'm driving at the worst
| possible time), so I'm getting into work later than everybody
| else as it is.
| DiffEq wrote:
| Is there a reason they can not walk to school? It doesn't
| really take long to walk a mile and it is very good for
| them mentally to get a walk in before and after school
| anyway. There may be times when inclement weather might
| make it a little miserable but proper clothes can address
| that in all but the most extreme cases. I grew up in MT and
| had to walk about a mile to my elementary school and almost
| a mile to my High School bus stop. I enjoyed those walks
| and the time to think it afforded.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Well, if school didn't start until 9 AM, I'd have to, but
| I'd feel horrible about it.
| justwalt wrote:
| Could they walk to a stop that's 0.01 miles further away?
| Surely there's another stop nearby.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| The school checks them against a list. We weren't the
| first parents to think of that.
| James_Henry wrote:
| This is, nowadays, for most parents, because work and school
| schedules have fallen into a sort equilibrium. If school
| started later, many work places would be forced to be
| accommodating. The ones that wouldn't be forced are mostly
| already an issue for parents with kids in school.
| [deleted]
| hpoe wrote:
| This is well known, but it also has impact on lots of other
| interconnected issues. Such as parents work schedules, that
| effect stability, that effect students learning as well. It will
| also impact school budgets, which then influences what kind of
| supplies and teachers a school gets, which also has a big impact
| on learning, and on and on and on.
|
| Not saying we shouldn't do it, I just feel like sometimes we see
| an idea that would help things and then jump to, obviously there
| is no reason not to do it, it must be evil <insert bogyman here
| government, corporations, lazy teachers unions, Illuminati,
| leprechauns>. We must remember we live in an incredibly complex
| system and pushing for changes in just one part will have
| ramifications that must be considered downstream.
| James_Henry wrote:
| Are you arguing that the ramifications for society of
| correcting for this issue are net negative? I would guess the
| opposite and think that we are going to see ever more schools
| pushing back start times in the next several decades. We are
| already seeing some acting.
| 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote:
| I got pretty mediocre grades in middle school. I always stayed up
| way too late on my computer. However I noticed looking back there
| was one exceptional quarter: when my first class was PE.
|
| I think running a mile at the start of every day did something to
| my brain. I advocate PE as the first class for all students.
| blakesterz wrote:
| Reminds me of when Boston tried to make some changes to start
| times for a number of reasons:
|
| What happened when Boston Public Schools tried for equity with an
| algorithm
|
| https://apps.bostonglobe.com/ideas/graphics/2018/09/equity-m...
|
| "But no one anticipated the crush of opposition that followed.
| Angry parents signed an online petition and filled the school
| committee chamber, turning the plan into one of the biggest
| crises of Mayor Marty Walsh's tenure. The city summarily dropped
| it. The failure would eventually play a role in the
| superintendent's resignation."
| throwawayhhakdl wrote:
| > What happened when Boston Public Schools tried for equity
| with an algorithm
|
| Ugh
|
| One thing I hated about this story was people complaining about
| being controlled by a black box algorithm. This was not a black
| box algorithm. It was, in fact, the opposite. It was an
| optimization solver that found the best outcome as defined by
| you given the constraints as defined by you. It could not be
| more transparent how it worked.
| Chathamization wrote:
| The Boston plan was to move a lot of younger students to
| earlier start times. People seem to just shrug this part off
| for some reason. People talk about the benefit of later start
| times for teenagers, but the negative impact that earlier start
| times would have on younger students gets ignored.
| fwsgonzo wrote:
| Indeed, school hours are tied to work hours. Now and forever.
| finaliteration wrote:
| My kid starts elementary school at 9am with one late start day a
| week. We're able to spend more time with her in the evening
| because we don't feel rushed to get her to bed so she gets enough
| sleep. I also find she doesn't seem totally exhausted when she
| gets up in the morning.
|
| That being said, my spouse and I are very fortunate in that we
| have flexible jobs with part-time remote work ability. I can't
| imagine how a single parent working two jobs would deal with the
| schedule change and late start day.
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(page generated 2020-02-20 23:00 UTC)