Delayed School Starts Impact Sleep Pattern in Students

Researchers at Norwalk Hospital’s Sleep Disorders Center in Connecticut have found through a study that teenagers studying in high schools that start later are able to sleep longer, resulting in lesser numbers of them feeling sleepy during the day. This is one of the studies being presented Monday at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) in Baltimore.

Zaw W. Htwe, MD, of Norwalk Hospital’s Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk, Conn., conducted the study on 259 students who completed the condensed school Sleep Habits Questionnaire. All the students said they slept approximately 7.03 hours per school night. The mean time of going to be for all was 10:52 p.m., while the mean wake-up time was 6:12 a.m. in a scenario where began at 7:35 a.m.

The results were different when the start time of the school was pushed back by 40 minutes. If school started at 8:15 a.m. instead of the regular 7:35 a.m., the researchers found an increase of 33 minutes in the total sleep time for the students. This increase was primarily because the students took to waking up later than when the time school started was 7:35 a.m.

During these times, the students went to bed slightly later as well, which led to a reduction in the amount of time they spent sleeping during the weekend. The study determined that once the timings of the school changed and the students were able to sleep a bit more, they showed a decreased tendency to sleep during the day.

This is what the corresponding author of the study, Mary B.O’Malley, MD, PhD, had to say about the issue, “Following a 40 minute delay in start time, the students utilized 83% of the extra time for sleep. This increase in sleep time came as a result of being able to ‘sleep in’ to 6:53 a.m., with little delay in the reported school night bedtime. This study demonstrates that students given the opportunity to sleep longer, will, rather than extend their wake activities on school nights.”

There were other reports as well scheduled to be presented at the meeting Monday. One of them showed that lack of sleep in students was likely to reflect in their grades. That study indicated this increased the risk of these students going through emotional and behavioral issues.

The study conducted by the University of Kentucky on 822 freshmen showed there was a connection between the GPA of students and the number of hours they slept each night.

According to this study, for every extra hour a student slept on school nights, the chances of the students scoring low, in the range that denoted emotional disturbance and ADHD, came down respectively by 25 percent and 34 percent.

Speaking about the study, author Fred Danner said, “Since these findings are based on associations rather than direct experimental manipulation; they cannot conclusively prove that insufficient sleep causes a loss of motivation, poor grades, ADHD and emotional disturbances during adolescence."

Danner continued, "These results, however, are consistent with a growing body of research that many adolescents do not get sufficient sleep, and that even mild chronic sleep deprivation has serious affects on their psychological functioning. Lack of sleep should no longer be considered a traditional adolescence rite of passage, because it can have serious consequence.”