Help Sleepy Teens Stay Awake at School
A full night's sleep is a luxury for many teens.
Two out of three high school students sleep less than eight hours each night, even though they need between 8.5 and 9.5 hours, says Dr. Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Insufficient sleep has been linked to a myriad of health issues, such as depression and obesity, and lower levels of academic achievement, Owens says.
Most high schools start before 8:30 a.m., making it hard for many teens – who generally have a hard time falling asleep naturally before 11 p.m., Owens says – to get enough shut-eye.
While two large school districts recently made changes to their high school start times – Fairfax County in Virginia and Montgomery County in Maryland – it might not be possible for some districts.
[Find out why later high school start times can be a challenge for districts.]
Nothing replaces a good night's rest, but teachers and parents can help their high schoolers stay awake during the school day with the following recommendations.
1. Advocate for later high school start times: When teens hit puberty, often in middle school, there is a shift in their circadian rhythms so that bedtime and waking get delayed, Owens says.
Plus, teens have other priorities competing for sleep like homework, after-school jobs and extracurricular activities.
If a teen needs to wake up at 5 a.m. to catch the bus at 5:45 a.m. and goes to bed at 11 p.m., for example, he or she will only get six hours of sleep, says Owens, who was the lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics' policy statement on school start times for adolescents.
[Read more about how doctors recommend delayed school start times for teens.]
Later high school start times could help.
Teachers could advocate for a start time change in their schools, Owens says, since they can be powerful voices. That’s something parents could help with as well.
"Certainly that’s not a change that’s going to occur overnight, but I think if teachers become engaged in that dialogue with the school superintendent and the principal and their students, that they can do a lot to move this forward in their community."
2. Have teens avoid scheduling core classes early in the school day: If possible, essential core subjects shouldn’t be held in the first two periods of the day, says Owens.
"Those kids’ brains are asleep and teachers will tell you, very readily, that if they are teaching a first period class, half the class has their heads down on their desk," she says.
Educators on Twitter told U.S. News they keep sleepy teens awake by making class engaging.
3. Encourage healthy sleep habits: Both parents and teachers can encourage teens to develop healthy sleep habits. They include things like avoiding drinking caffeine later in the afternoon or evening, shutting off electronics preferably an hour before bedtime and avoiding vigorous exercise too close to bedtime, Owens says.
Parents could also set rules at home when it comes to bedtime, like instituting a ban on electronic devices in the bedroom and in bed, she says. Or parents could put a limits on after-school jobs or the number of extracurricular activities teens participate in.
And just as they do with nutrition and exercise, parents need to make sleep a priority for their children from an early age, she says.
A parent on Twitter shared with U.S. News how she encourages healthy sleep habits.
But sleeping in on the weekends may not be in teens' best interest.
"If you sleep until noon on Sunday, there is no way that you are going to be able to get to bed at a reasonable hour," Owens says.
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