Sleeping late on weekends hurts teens' focus

Sleeping late on weekends may not be the answer to sleep lost during the week. High school students in a recent study had more trouble with tests after catching up on sleep over the weekend.

The tests measured a person’s ability to pay attention and were part of a study of about 2,600 urban high school students from South Korea. Students who slept in on the weekends made more mistakes on the tests than students who slept the same amount on weekdays and weekends.

The average amount of sleep per student in the Korean study was 5 hours and 42 minutes on weekdays. This was well below the nine or more hours of sleep that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) recommends for teenagers.

However, catching up on sleep on weekends did not give these students an advantage. The teens who maintained the same sleep hours on weekends as the weekdays scored higher on the attention tests throughout the school term.

Researchers said the results could be helpful information for doctors. It may help them identify teenage patients who are not getting enough sleep and are having trouble concentrating. The study was published in the September 2011 edition of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Sleeping in on weekends doesn’t seem to work for adults, either. An earlier study showed that adults sleeping six hours a night during the week had lower scores on coordination tests. The low scores remained even after adults slept-in a couple hours on the weekend.

Read more blog posts about teens and sleep. Learn more from the AASM about teens and sleep loss—and take a quiz to rate sleepiness—on the Your Sleep website.

Photo by Star Guitar

Early School Start Times Endanger Teen Drivers, Study Finds

Teens as a group are notoriously bad drivers, with the highest annual accident and traffic violation rate of any age group in the United States. Parents have good reason to fear for the worst every time their child gets behind the wheel: auto accidents are the leading cause of death for America’s teens.

A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine is directing some of the blame on schools for creating dangerous driving conditions for teens. The study found that accident rates are 41 percent higher when high school classes begin before 7:30 a.m.

The study compared teen accident rates at two demographically similar neighboring communities in southeast Virginia: Chesapeake and Virginia Beach.

Accident data from 2008 provided by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles showed that there were 65.8 auto crashes for every 1,000 teen drivers in Virginia Beach compared to 46.6 for Chesapeake.

The only significant difference, according to the authors, was school start times. Classes started at 7:20 a.m. in Virginia Beach. Students in Chesapeake were able to sleep in an extra hour and twenty minutes because of the 8:40 a.m. start time.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine reports that the average teen needs more than nine hours of sleep per night. Falling asleep early can be difficult for teens because of natural night-owl tendencies and distractions such as smart phones and video games. As a result, teens often fail to get enough sleep and may drive to school with severe sleep deprivation.

Pushing forward start times for high school students will help them get more sleep, and as a result, make the roads safer. School districts across the United States have taken notice and have moved the opening high school bell to 8 a.m. or later.

Learn more about the sleep habits of teenagers.

Image by Carlos Lei

Multiple Factors Hurt Teen Sleep

Only a small percentage of American teens regularly meet their sleep needs. The reason their losing valuable shuteye isn’t quite as simple as sometimes portrayed. A front page article in the Chicago Tribune earlier this week blamed sleep loss on technology such as video games and gadgets. While this is assessment isn’t untrue, it’s just one piece of the puzzle.

Teens have a tendency to be night owls even though they need more sleep than adults. The AASM recommends a minimum of 9 hours of sleep nightly for teens and adolescents. Many schools require teens to wake up very early, sometimes even before their parents. It’s not uncommon to see high school athletes report to morning practice as early as 5 a.m.

Some teens may not be able to go to sleep early enough to get the recommended hours of sleep even if they wanted. Many teens’ circadian systems are incompatible with early morning schedules. An article in the latest issue of Chronobiology International shows evidence that teens are naturally wired to stay awake later especially in the spring and summer.

The study found sleep onset times were delayed when adolescents were exposed to natural light during the evening hours. As the days become longer teens are inclined to stay up later.

The authors compared self-reported bedtimes and sleep durations to the time of sunset. Teens slept went to sleep early and slept longer during shorter winter days. Researchers presume a lighting scheme to reduce teens’ exposure to evening sunlight may help them get to sleep early during longer days.

That alone may not be enough. Turning off the television and Xbox an hour before bedtime may help. Schools too need to make adjustments so more than 21 percent of teens get enough sleep. Pushing start times forward can make students happier, more productive and even keep them out of harm's way.

Students See Improvements With Later School Start Times

A slight change to high school start times may make a big impact on wakefulness and academic performance. A study published in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine is the latest to show why starting school near dawn may not be in the students’ best interest.

Improvements were across the board when a boarding school in Rhode Island pushed start times forward from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Student felt more motivated when they were satisfied with sleep. Mood-related problems such as depression dropped, attendance improved and fewer students visited the nurse’s office with fatigue-related complaints.

By pushing forward start times by only 30 minutes the average night sleep increased by 45 minutes. Students went to sleep only about 18 minutes later. More than half of students slept for more than eight hours per night. More than three-quarters of normally sleep-deprived students reported getting more than seven hours of sleep per night.

The study involved 201 high-schooled aged participants. Each completed an online survey about sleep habits twice: before and after the school switched start times.
Classes may start as early as 7 a.m. in some U.S. schools. Student athletes may be required to report to school well before daybreak for practice.

The effect of various school start times is a hot topic in the sleep research community. Recent studies show early classes may be making students depressed. One well-publicized article links earlier start times to dangerous driving.

Adolescents and teenagers have different sleep architecture from adults and require more sleep. High school-aged students are more likely to be night owls and have difficulty sleeping in the evening. The AASM reports teenagers should get about 9 hours of sleep per night.

Teen auto accident rates higher when school starts earlier

Statistics from a new study show teenage drivers are more likely to get in an accident when classes start earlier. Crash rates are 41 percent higher for students who attend schools that begin around the crack of dawn.

The teen driver study presented Wednesday at SLEEP 2010 further fuels a movement to push forward school start times.

The data came from data from two adjacent communities with similar demographics provided by the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. In Virginia Beach, school starts at 7:20 a.m. Classes start at 8:40 a.m. in neighboring Chesapeake.

Accidents reports show 65.4 out of every 1,000 teen drivers in Virginia Beach were in at least one crash. Less than 5 percent of Chesapeake teens were in automobile accidents.

The crashes happened more frequently in the afternoon than morning in both communities. The afternoon accident rate was about 3.5 percent in Virginia Beach (2 p.m. dismissal) and 2 percent in Chesapeake (4 p.m. dismissal).

Although the study does not prove cause and effect, lead author Robert Vorona believes earlier start times are restricting the time available for teens to sleep. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends teens get at least 9 hours of sleep per night. Chronic sleep restriction increases the risk of an auto accident, and can lead to mood disorders, academic difficulties and behavioral issues.

Image courtesy gillicious

Sleepy Teens Need to See the Light

A new study reports that teen sleep patterns may be disrupted by a lack of exposure to morning sunlight.

The study took place at a middle school in Chapel Hill, N.C., that has good daylight design. South-facing skylights allow plenty of natural light to enter nearly all spaces of the building.

Eleven eighth-grade students wore orange goggles for a five-day school week. The goggles prevented short-wavelength, “blue” light from reaching their eyes.

This light plays an important role in helping to set the body’s circadian clock. This timing system helps regulate sleep and wakefulness.

In the evenings the researchers measured the children’s “dim light melatonin onset.” This is the time when the body produces more melatonin.

This hormone is a “darkness signal” for the body. Sleep tends to occur about two hours after melatonin onset.

Results show that melatonin onset was delayed about six minutes per day. This added up to a delay of about 30 minutes by the end of the week.

The authors report that this delay may contribute to later sleep times and shorter sleep durations in teens. Early school start times may contribute to the problem by reducing exposure to morning sunlight.

“These morning-light-deprived teenagers are going to bed later, getting less sleep and possibly under-performing on standardized tests,” lead researcher Mariana Figueiro said in a news release. “We are starting to call this the teenage night owl syndrome.”

Figueiro added that the problem can be solved by designing better school buildings. One sponsor of the study was the U.S. Green Building Council.

“The situation in schools can be changed rapidly by the conscious delivery of daylight, which is saturated with short-wavelength, or blue, light,” she said. “Delivering daylight in schools may be a simple, non-pharmacological treatment for students to help them increase sleep duration.”

Figueiro is the program director of the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. At LRC they have created a small device called a “Daysimeter.” It measures a person’s exposure to short-wavelength, blue light.

Read more about sleep and teens.

Final Week to Enter AASM High School Contest

The deadline for the 2009 – 2010 AASM High School Topical Review in Sleep Science Contest is Friday, Jan. 15.

High school juniors and seniors are invited to submit an original review paper. They can choose a subject from a list of 12 topics related to sleep medicine and sleep research.

The contest offers a first-place prize of a $1,000 U.S. savings bond. The winning student and one parent or guardian also will receive a three-day/two-night trip to San Antonio.

In June the city will host the SLEEP 2010 24th Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC. At this meeting the contest winner will be recognized by the AASM.

Prizes also will be awarded for second place, third place and honorable mention. All award recipients will have their paper posted on the AASM Web site at www.sleepeducation.com.

Get complete details and a contest entry form online.

High School Writing Contest: Deadline is Jan. 15

The Jan. 15 deadline is only one month away for the 2009 – 2010 AASM High School Topical Review in Sleep Science Contest.

High school juniors and seniors are invited to submit an original review paper. They can choose a subject from a list of 12 topics related to sleep medicine and sleep research.

“This contest is an excellent opportunity to introduce students to some of the fascinating aspects of sleep and sleep disorders,” said AASM President Dr. Clete Kushida.

The contest offers a first-place prize of a $1,000 U.S. savings bond. The winning student and one parent or guardian also will receive a three-day/two-night trip to San Antonio in June.

Deep in the heart of Texas, San Antonio offers visitors a dynamic experience. Popular attractions include the Alamo, Six Flags and SeaWorld.

San Antonio will host the SLEEP 2010 24th Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC in June. At this meeting the contest winner will be recognized by the AASM.

Prizes also will be awarded for second place, third place and honorable mention. All award recipients will have their paper posted on the AASM Web site at www.sleepeducation.com.

Get complete details and a contest entry form online. The submission deadline is Friday, Jan. 15, 2010.

Delaying High School Start Times in England

One high school in England has delayed its start time by an hour to help students get more sleep, reports The Independent.

The school’s original start time was at 9 a.m. This would seem like a luxury to many U.S. teens who start school before 8 a.m.

Now classes begin at 10 a.m. The school day ends 30 minutes later in the afternoon.

“Here is something that schools can do to improve the health and mental health of their pupils,” headteacher Dr. Paul Kelley told The Independent.

The school doors remain open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This allows extra time for the supervision of students whose parents are at work.

Kelley was advised by Oxford sleep expert Russell Foster, PhD. Foster emphasized that teens have a biological need for more sleep than adults. And they are wired to perform better in the afternoon hours than in the early morning.

"It is time we stopped ignoring the sleep patterns of young adults," Foster told The Independent. “It is cruel to impose a cultural pattern on teenagers that makes them underachieve. Most school regimes force teenagers to function at a time of day that is sub-optimal.”

Earlier this year the Sleep Education Blog reported that teens in Kansas and Minnesota have benefited from starting school later. A proposal to delay high school start times in one Virginia county stirred a strong debate before being rejected.

Learn more about teens and sleep loss and your teen’s bed time on SleepEducation.com.

Sleep & Teens: New High School Writing Contest

It’s time for teens to do some sleep writing. The 2009 – 2010 AASM High School Topical Review in Sleep Science Contest is a new writing contest for juniors and seniors.

It offers a first-place prize of a $1,000 U.S. savings bond. The winning student also will receive a trip for two to San Antonio, Texas.

To enter, students must write an original topical review paper related to sleep and sleep disorders. They can choose a topic from 12 subject areas. These include sleep deprivation, insomnia and drowsy driving. Entrants must be sponsored by their science teacher.

The first-place student and one parent or guardian will receive a three-day/two-night trip to San Antonio, Texas, in June. Deep in the heart of Texas, San Antonio offers visitors a dynamic experience. Popular attractions include the Alamo, Six Flags and SeaWorld.

Why San Antonio? It’s where the SLEEP 2010 24th Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC will take place. At this meeting the contest winner will be recognized by the AASM.

What’s SLEEP 2010? It’s an annual meeting where the latest sleep research from around the world is presented. More than 5,500 people attend the meeting each year. This includes doctors, scientists, other health professionals and students.

Prizes also will be awarded for second place, third place and honorable mention. All award recipients will have their paper posted on the AASM Web site at www.sleepeducation.com. All recognized papers also will be considered for publication in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. JCSM is the official publication of the AASM and a leading scientific journal in the field of sleep.

Want to find out more? Get complete details and a contest entry form online. The submission deadline is Friday, Jan. 15, 2010.

Wired: Technology, Caffeine Keeping Teens Awake at Night

Technology-savvy teens can excel at multi-tasking. They can send text messages, surf the Internet and watch their favorite TV show all at the same time.

But a new study shows that technology may be taking a toll on their sleep. Many teens are staying up too late and consuming too much caffeine. As a result, they’re not getting enough sleep to remain alert during the day.

The study involved students between the ages of 12 and 18 years. They reported how much time after 9 p.m. they use various technological devices.

WebMD reports that watching TV was the most common activity; 82 percent of participants watched TV after 9 p.m. Fifty-five percent reported being online; 44 percent reported talking on the phone; and 42 percent reported listening to an MP3 player. Other common activities were watching movies, text messaging and playing computer games.

Multi-tasking was high; teens used an average of four technological devices after 9 p.m. Teens who did more multi-tasking tended to drink more caffeine.

Only 20 percent of participants got eight to 10 hours of sleep per night; these teens tended to do less multi-tasking after 9 p.m.

Thirty-three percent of teens reported falling asleep in school. Students who fell asleep in class consumed 76 percent more caffeine.

The AASM reports that most teens need a little more than nine hours of sleep each night to feel alert and well rested during the day. But a shift in the timing of their body clock causes teens to feel sleepy later at night. This explains why it can be hard for them to fall asleep before 10 p.m.

The AASM recommends that parents keep the TV and computer out of their teen’s bedroom. Parents also should set a “communication curfew” at night; set a time after which your teen can no longer talk on the phone or send text messages, instant messages or e-mails.

Learn more about teens and sleep loss on SleepEducation.com. Parents can get more tips for teen bed times.

Sleep and High School Start Times: Lessons from Fairfax County

An editorial in today’s Washington Post examines the debate over school start times. It shows just how complex it can be to make changes to daily school schedules.

A proposal in Fairfax County, Va., would change the start time of most high schools in the county from 7:20 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. It appears that there is strong support for a change. But there are also many obstacles.

Money is one concern. In Fairfax County, 169,000 students must be transported to and from school each day. This is both complicated and costly.

The Post reports that Fairfax school officials once estimated that a schedule change could cost up to $40 million. But they found ways to make bus routes more efficient. This led to the current “no-cost” proposal.

Teens and parents may have concerns about starting and ending school later. Will some teens still have time to work on school nights? How will after-school activities be affected? Will the new schedule allow enough time for school teams to practice and play games?

In Fairfax County the group Worried About Keeping Extra-curriculars (WAKE) formed around this issue. Another group called Save Our Sport formed to represent the needs of high-school swim teams and dive teams.

Another huge hurdle for many parents is the issue of day care. Changing the schedule may cause younger children to start and end school earlier. Working parents may have to make new arrangements for the supervision of these children after school.

There also is a debate over the merits of the problem. Scientists report that a biological change causes teens to feel sleepy later at night. Early school start times may prevent them from getting the sleep they need.

Others may argue that teens just need more discipline. They could get more sleep if they would get off the Internet and put down their cell phones earlier at night.

What do you think? Is it worth the effort to change school schedules so teens can get more sleep? Or does making a change cause more problems than it solves?

Update 3/20/09: The Washington Post reports today that the Fairfax County School Board rejected the proposal to delay high school start times by a vote of 10 to 2. According to the article, the board decided that changing the school start times would create too much stress for students and parents.

Should Teens Start School Later?

The Washington Post reports that Fairfax County in Virginia is the latest school district to join the debate over school start times. A proposal would change the start time of most high schools in the county from 7:20 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

The goal is to help sleep-deprived teens get more sleep. Research shows that teen sleep loss is related in part to a biological change that occurs during the teen years.

A shift in the body clock’s timing makes it hard for teens to fall asleep before 11 p.m. As a result teens fail to get enough sleep when they have to get up early for school.

But will teens really get more sleep if school starts later in the morning? Or will they just stay up even later at night?

A new study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine examined this question. It focused on a Kansas county that changed the high school start time from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. Results show that the change had a positive effect.

A higher percentage of students got eight or nine hours of sleep per night. There was a decrease in “catch-up sleep” on weekends. Daytime sleepiness also decreased.

The study also suggests that school start times may be linked to drowsy driving. Crash rates for teen drivers in the county dropped by 16.5 percent in the two years after the change. In the rest of the state teen crash rates increased 7.8 percent.

Changing school start times can be a complex decision. It requires altering bus schedules. It has an impact on after-school sports, activities and jobs. It also affects after-school care for younger children.

But the change may be worth the effort. A study looked at how the change affected more than 12,000 high school students in the Minneapolis Public School District. It found that student attendance and enrollment improved. Students also got an average of five more hours of sleep per week.

So what do you think? Should teens get a later start in the morning?