"There are always some students who can't get the motor running," says Gregory Downs, an instructor at DePaul University and former high school teacher. "Some of them have been up until one in the morning, and they struggle to be alert. Others go to sleep at a normal hour but need 10 or 12 hours because they're growing so much. Still others try to go to bed early but can't fall asleep for hours."
High school teachers know that, for whatever reason, many of their students just don't seem to function well in the first hours of the school day. In fact, mounting scientific evidence suggests that older adolescents are fundamentally not getting enough sleep. But why? Is it because they just stay up too late? Brain research suggests instead that these sleepy heads are actually functioning on an a time clock out of synch with adults. Thus, high school age kids may need a schedule of their own.
"Research has shown that probably the most sensitive domain to sleep deprivation is related to cognitive and attention skills."
Kyla Wahlstrom, a researcher at the University of Minnesota's Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement, argues that adolescents "need increasing amounts of sleep." As children move through the teen years, she says, they need at least nine hours of sleep a night in order "to avoid behaviors associated with sleep deprivation."
According to Wahlstom's research, 20 percent of all high school students fall asleep in school and over 50 percent of students report being most alert after 3:00 pm. Which means that for many kids, most of the school day is a sleepy blur. "Students who evidence a sleep lag syndrome correspond to those having poorer grades," says Wahlstom.
"Research has shown that probably the most sensitive domain to sleep deprivation is related to cognitive and attention skills," says Tel Aviv University professor of psychology Avi Sadeh. "At least for those who want to be good students, an extra hour of sleep may sometimes be much more important than an extra hour of study, let alone an hour of TV or surfing the Internet."
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