How An Early School Start Is Affecting Teenagers' Sleep

During summer break, teenagers if they can get up late and often stay up late. That's not just some crazy have a kids indulgent during summer vacation. Researches have known for years teenagers need more sleep than adults. Their biological clocks tend toward hours. Those lazy days are coming to an end for teens. San Diego's high schools have an average start time at 730 in the morning, a full hour before the American Academy of pediatrics recommends school starts for teenagers. Why do so many high schools still start so early? Joining us today, Rakesh Bhattacharjee, director of pediatric sleep program, UC San Diego Sleep Center and Jessica Rapp-McCreary, principal-in-residence, San Diego County Office of Education. Jessica, what's it like trying to teach high school kids in the early morning classes. If you work in high school or the start time is 730, it can be a little rough. You have a few kids in the classroom are rolling in, holding caffeine drinks in their hands. They are tired because there up late doing homework or their at a game drug addicts. Or the other crested -- extracurricular activities are socializing through social media in bed. It's a normal experience for teachers to see kids tired in the morning. Teachers need to incorporate some extra activities more physically inclined activities in the classroom to get kids up and moving while they are doing the linen. Any kids nodding off? Yes. There are always students who may not off if you don't think physically moving in the classroom. Dr., how much space do adolescents need. The recommendations by most electric sleep specialists, we estimate about 8 to 9 hours of sleep. The goal would be nine, most are satisfied with age. I think clearly, the vast majority of teens are not making that. They are getting far less sleep than we recommend. It's a little more than your typical adults. Childhood is a period of growth and learning. We know this is a critical opportunity for kids to advance of sleep is a very important process for them. The natural biology of sleep, youngsters including infants need more sleep than adults. We speculate due to the fact that infants, toddlers, children, adolescents, they are gross and so much learning and possibly this reflects on how much sleep they need. Also, when we are talking about adolescence, to their sleep patterns also differ from adults. In other words we're okay going a bit about 10, waking up at six. What about teenagers? In teenagers, there becomes a delayed circadian preference. What this means is adolescence start to go to bed later and start to wake up later. The contrast this to the toddler closer to sleep around 7 PM and wakes up quite early. Adults maintain some of that delayed circadian preference and as we age into the elderly we start to see the elderly start to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. The same normal biological process we are actually a part of that teenagers need to tend to go to bed earlier and wake up later. When you hear about how early kids are starting school, then you factor in the time to get up and get dressed and have breakfast and get out the door, what are your concerns about them when it comes to getting adequate? The largest concern is they're not getting enough sleep. We call that sleep deprivation. There both mental health as well as physical health consequences. With early school times, this is trying to adapt society to make school early. Letter teenagers don't get enough sleep. There are at a disadvantage not been able to learn as well. May not be physically active. There risks associated like obesity that can be related to not enough sleep. I think it's unfair to our teenagers to have them go to school so early because it's resulting in them not getting enough sleep. To teachers take into account these early start times. Do teachers plan that lessons around this? Every teacher has their own teaching style, teachers that try to stay ahead of a natural biology that's happening with students where they deal tired and coming without enough sleep so their bodies are demanding some rest time. And teachers will get creative about activities. If they want them to study a particular topic, you will have kids a standing up speaking with kids across the room, walking around the room why they -- while they read something. Those techniques are ways to keep kids alerts and keep them attentive to the lesson. How our school start times determined? It's really a system issue at times. There are schools who can decide they want to have a little start time or parents who don't want to move to later start time. It can happen at the end of the day. There are things that schools can do. However, if you're a school and a district with anything more than two or three other schools, you need to work in conjunction with other schools. Transportation issues, you can get dramatically affected by one the school decided to start at a later time. Athletics in high schools can be very inconvenienced when their again times schedule and coordinate with other districts. Is a whole variety of a staffing issues that can come up if you're asking teachers to come at a later time, they and their day later. Some prefer to do their grading and lesson plan at the end of the day and have their family time at the end of the day. That can inconvenience of their schedules. Is difficult for one school to make a decision to do this. So it's a whole system that would need to be change. I saw a lot of things written about the bus schedules and the fact that a lot of districts have buses running on two distinct schedules. They don't have this huge fleet of buses, they have to double up. That's one of the essential elements that keeps those early start times. One school I worked in had a different the time. They had the let's start schedule in a district. There had to be to set a school start times, once it of schools started earlier so the first round could happen in the city and the second one would start later. Do you know of any schools in the county starting at the recommended time of a 30? There are quite a few. It tends to be more frequently in the elementary schools but there are quite a few secondary schools really do take it seriously to start at a later time. Those who can't quite started a video later while these have Wednesday the week where on Monday they do a late start time to allow teachers to meet in the morning rather than after school and during that time kids can get adjusted to the new school week. Had her parents voicing concerns about early start times? I hear parents from both sides. Let's say we see the difference, our kids need more sleep and it's difficult for them to go to sleep at night time. You also hear parents saying I want my child to participate in extracurricular activities. I want them to socialize with their hands -- friends, etc. Those parents want the earlier start time. It's not a uniform request on the part of the past. Have there been studies on how sleep deprivation affects adolescents cognitive function. Are they able to learn? This is an important hot topic we face as pediatric sleep researchers. Certainly there is an impact on school performance. With poor quality sleep and sleep deprivation. There's also concerns raised about safety pertains, particularly driving teens. We're learning in all ages that kids are impacted in their grades their extracurricular activities, and athletics. Is a grave concern with teens getting enough sleep because as a pediatrician, my role is to make sure these kids can succeed later in life. These are very important years for them to be able to get into the college they wish to. If they can't get into the college they wish test the sleep disorder, that's something I take seriously. It's not just early start times, it's the other stuff, it's of the later hours and technology plays a role in this. The American Academy of pediatrics, with establish this statement the delayed sleep times, they did discuss all the other strategies that are important to make sure kids including teenagers get enough sleep. One of the big concerns would include capping drinking. Is a lot of kids trick copy at inappropriate times. They may it -- may also affect the quality sleep. What you think about the highly caffeinated drinks? Particularly for kids with disordered sleep, it's an absolute now. We recommend no ingestion of any caffeinated or energy drinks because of these kids need sleep. This is going to clearly impact them. Said the concern, we see a lot of teenagers go into a coffee shop and get a large latte and go to school. They try to compensate for the early school times. It's counterintuitive. We're also seeing a lot with technology. These screens make blue light. Bluelight is they actually suppress our bodies ability to secrete melatonin which actually helps us get to sleep. S&S these teenagers open their personal devices, the bluelight suppresses their melatonin and are trying to sleep is reduced. That's another force that teenagers encounter that results in them not getting to sleep soon enough. The position statement discusses all these details. Sleep hygiene is another important factor we need to adjust to make sure teenagers get enough sleep including keeping it consistent sleep wake cycle. Is there anything that schools do to address this particular problem? Yes. Lots of tampering with master schedule so you can do things like have block periods where you can have just three classes a day rather than all six periods held every day. The three classes are longer periods of so give students more time to focus on the curriculum and to -- less time to have to spend on homework every night because you're only studied the next three classes the next day. This before and after school care programs schools implement they were to adjust start and dismissal times. Another thing I've seen the schools do is coordinate homework where Bill make sure all the departments in a school are paying attention to how much of a letter, their giving to student and minutes coordinated across the departments so students overall only -- have no more than two hours of study time each night. Other intellectual classes are instruction given to the kids of themselves about their needs and their responsibility to get enough sleep. I hear teachers all time try to talk to kids about how you have to turn off the phone, you have to have a regular bedtime so you can get used to getting up at a regular time, tried to get your full sleep especially if you're doing athletics. It's a conversation we see in literature going out from the schools to the parents to reinforce to the parents we really need to pay attention to the sick time. In the end, you get what you get and you don't always get students with full nights of sleep. In addition, the concerns about school day started too early, is it possible kids are just trying to do too much? Certain there's a lot of stressors teenagers have with athletics and extracurricular activities and possibly not being able to balance all of that. I would agree there is that elements. I think as parents, as pediatricians and teachers, our role is to help identify when that child is at need and how we can help them cope with that. Maybe the child is doing too much and they need to step back. My role is looking at sleep. When I see a child in the clinic and they are doing too many activities and not getting their homework done, I ask if the parents maybe there are asking too much of their child because this is causing a lot of stress for your child. I'm sure we haven't heard the last of this issue. I would like to thank my guests Jessica Rapp-McCreary, principal-in-residence, San Diego County Office of Education and Rakesh Bhattacharjee, director of pediatric sleep program, UC San Diego Sleep Center. Thank you both very much.