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It is extremely necessary that teens get between 8-0 hours of sleep on a regular basis. In teens, melatonin is released around pm on average, which is an hour later than in adults. Melatonin helps your body know when it’s time to sleep and wake up. In theory, this means that the earliest a teen can fall asleep is pm. Start times at Nyack are 7:30 am which would give us 8.5 hours of sleep if we went to bed at exactly and slept until the first bell. Knowing this information, you can infer that the school isn’t giving us enough time to get our necessary sleep. Add hours of homework, sports, extracurriculars, and work to the mix and teens are anywhere from -5 hours sleep deprived on a daily basis. Now, just how big of a deal is sleep deprivation? Our bodies require long periods of sleep in order to restore and rejuvenate, grow muscle, repair tissue, and synthesize hormones. Sleep helps to fuel your brain and your body. Teens need more sleep because their bodies and minds are growing quickly. According to sleep professionals, A lot of action takes place in teenage brains due to their developmental stage. There are major changes to thinking, emotions, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Shifts in the balance between brain systems create a period where teens may take increased risks or engage in more reward seeking. Adding inadequate sleep time to the picture can cause many implications and alter the development process negatively (Hall ). The worst part of the situation is that it’s not even the teens’ fault they are sleep deprived. Total control over the issue lies solely in the hands of the school district. The school can blame video games, youtube, and netflix for the lost sleep all they want, but in reality, they’re not even giving us enough time to sleep in the first place.
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he benefits of adequate sleep reach further than just teen development, it has been proven that later start times lead to better grades, better moods, and better focus among students. Schools across the country have experimented with delayed start times, and in almost all cases they saw a major improvement in grades as well as attendance. Hingham Public schools in Massachusetts moved their start times from 7:20 to 8 a.m. and saw improvements in academic performance and attendance. Nauset regional high moved back start times and saw instantaneous results, according to the report, including fewer failing grades and suspensions. A school district in Washington state shifted start times and reported that students were much happier (McNamara). The overwhelmingly positive results of delayed start times shouldn’t be a surprise. The science behind sleep and how important it is to our body says it all. Getting a good night of sleep benefits us during every aspect of our day. It especially affects our mood throughout the day. The incidence of depression among teens significantly rises with less than nine hours of sleep. Around half of the teens who sleep four hours or less per night feel sad and hopeless, compared to just 9 percent of their well-rested peers (Wahlstrom). Just this one adjustment of start times could significantly help those struggling with depression and other mental illnesses. A recent review identified an increased risk for suicide, being overweight, high rates of injury, poor sustained attention and low school grades for teens sleeping less than eight hours (Hall). It’s hard for a sleep-deprived person to focus their attention and learn. Sleep also affects learning by repeating patterns and information while you are asleep. This is vital to retaining information and memorizing.