6 ms·

>"This is an especially big problem for teens whose circadian rhythms are already shifting naturally, causing them to feel awake later at night. The end result:

• josefresco 8y ago
  >When I was in High School, a 7 am start time required me to be awake at 5 am, which probably contributed to how miserable I felt as a teen. In my region they've shifted school start times later to accommodate teens who have late after-school activities. The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need. The shift for our local teenagers resulted in even earlier start time for elementary and middle school aged kids. Bus schedules also shifted which required me to wake my young kids even earlier (5:30 AM). Thankfully my work is flexible enough that I can drive them, which gives them an extra 30-45 min of time each morning - other parents not so lucky.
  • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    What's your source on "younger children need more sleep"? Our teen definitely needs much more than his younger sibling. But it seems to be more individual based on my very low n observations, the eldest needed more sleep when he was the age his younger sibling is. I'd expect there to be a sex-based characteristic to sleep needs to?
    • josefresco 8y ago
      I didn't cite my sources because I thought it was common knowledge (my bad). I found this after 1 search query: http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316 http://www.aappublications.org/news/2016/06/13/Sleep061316 Two more in case you need some more: https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1 https://www.webmd.com/parenting/guide/sleep-children#1 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies-kids-and-teens/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-sleep-guidelines-for-babies...
      • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        The reason I wanted your source was to see the detail - like ranges, breadth of studies, etc.. Many people assume a lot of things that when investigated turn out to be false. Often assertions don't match their backing: for example you said " The problem with this logic is that the younger the child, the more sleep they need." However that's not what your first study says. It gives broad ranges, so it concedes that younger children can need less sleep than older children, it's not tied in a simple way to age. You perhaps meant "on average", which is quite reasonable, and having the source you based you statement on can lead one to assume you were being brief rather than errant. FWIW those sources look like you quickly googled it; and so weren't really relying on any particular sources. TL;DR your source supports my observation and contradicts your claim as written.
        • meowface 8y ago
          Your observation is anecdotal, based on a sample size of two, up against what appears to be the scientific consensus.
        • behringer 8y ago
          For parents wondering what the right amount is, the right amount is simply how many hours your children wants to sleep. People on a schedule just don't oversleep. The research only really matters if you have medical concerns about your child, for example, you can't get them on any schedule, they're sleepy when they seem to be getting enough sleep, or there's some other issue. Make your schedule malleable for your kids and within a few days you'll pretty much know exactly how much sleep they need.
          • josefresco 8y ago
            > how many hours your children wants to sleep For my kids the trouble is "when" they want this sleep. My oldest goes to bed "early" and rises early. My youngest could stay up until 2-3 AM and sleep until noon (as she did this summer).
            • 8y ago
    • calewis 8y ago
      no sex based characteristics only age Your teenager needs 9-10 hours of sleep every day (even on the weekends where possible)
  • gradys 8y ago
    Younger children may need more sleep in total, but teenagers' circadian rhythm is shifted later relative to adults and younger children. They need 8 hours or so that starts and ends later than younger children. Or at least that's the argument made in the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
• tome 8y ago
  I'm in favour of making sure teenagers get enough sleep, but why can't they just go to bed earlier?
  • hyperpape 8y ago
    Teenagers' circadian rhythms are shifted later than adults': they naturally go to bed later and sleep later. For most individuals, trying to sleep at times other than your body's rhythm will make it more difficult to go to sleep (though how severe that is varies from individual to individual).
    • tome 8y ago
      What's that controlled by? Exposure to daylight?
      • nicktelford 8y ago
        It's an evolutionary thing. Having children, adolescents, adults and the elderly on different sleep schedules affords a family unit with nearly round the clock protection (as there's nearly always someone awake).
        • tome 8y ago
          That's a very interesting hypothesis! I've never heard it before.
          • pbhjpbhj 8y ago
            Is it scientific? I can't see how it can be falsified, it seems more like an assertion than a hypothesis?
            • tome 8y ago
              "A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothesis
• Xixi 8y ago
  If think people put way too much importance into clock time. It doesn't really matter what number the clock shows when you wake up. The problem is to sleep early enough to be able to wake up. If you sleep too late you will have a hard time waking up, whether you are trying to wake up at 6am or at 11am. Unless you are particularly sensitive to sunlight, in which case you will wake up with the sun... so certainly quite a bit earlier than most teens would like to. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but it certainly wouldn't have helped me. At my very worst (around 19 or 20) I had a hard time waking up to attend classes at 1:30pm... Which makes sense given that I was going to sleep at 5~6am (CS, Warcraft III, etc.) and I'm a big sleeper (still need a solid 8 to 8:30 hours per night at 35).
  • Symmetry 8y ago
    Clock time doesn't matter, you're right, but it very does matter what time school starts in relation to when the Sun goes up and down - at least if teens spend a good amount of time outside or in rooms with windows.
    • watwut 8y ago
      Most of school year it is dark long before they go to sleep regardless of when they go to sleep. Half the time it is dark when they are leaving activities and it is going to be worst if they stop DST. How much difference makes 4 hours of dark before sleeping vs 5 hours of dark? It also changes constantly. Over year there is hours of difference for when sun goes away, with sun being available longest in summer.
      • ryanmercer 8y ago
        Right? Sunrise today was 7:21 AM, sunset is 5:38 PM. So in Indiana in the winter school should be from what? 9 AM to 3 PM so kids have time to have an early dinner, do their homework and hit the rack by 6 PM? Then what about on June 1st? Sunrise is at 6:20 AM and sunset is at 9:07 PM.
      • Symmetry 8y ago
        It isn't a matter of time since you were exposed to sunlight that causes sleepiness. Rather, you body has its own 24 our cycle called the Circadian rhythm that is phase locked to the solar cycle. If you go into a cave far away from the sun you'll still have a roughly 24 hour sleep/wake cycle but over time it will drift away from the actual day cycle. As far as I'm aware the duty cycle of 24 our sunlight input doesn't have any effect on the ability of the Circadian rhythm to phase match with it. If you're interested in learning more I'd recommend the book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.
• epmaybe 8y ago
  Why didn't you sleep earlier?
• milesvp 8y ago
  There was an economic study looking at the economic benefits of sleep. 30 minutes may not sound like much, but it has some serious long term repercussions in lifetime earning. I know economic studies can be kind of gross, and should always be taken with a grain of salt, but Dubner is pretty good at finding really gross flaws in papers (or at least is really good at pointing out potential problems in a study's methods). http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-economics-of-sleep-part-2-full-transcript/ http://freakonomics.com/2015/07/16/the-economics-of-sleep-pa... >GIBSON: We find that permanently increasing sleep by an hour per week for everybody in a city, increases the wages in that location by about 4.5 percent.
• calewis 8y ago
  Teenagers need 8-10 hours, not 7-9, but it's not just about the total time spent asleep (although this is super critical for teenagers as they need much more) it's about the quality of sleep. Devices close to bed time stimulate the mind with a range of hormones and thought patterns. while teenagers might be able to fall asleep in the same way, they don't sleep as well. This being defined and less regular cycles and fewer and shorter phases of deep sleep, especially in the last phase of deep sleep (the most critical). Without doubt making teenagers get up early to study has a detrimental affect of their learning and it's only our arcane societal norms around sleep that continue to compound this problem.