New research suggests that current school start times are damaging the learning and health of students.
Researchers from the University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School and the University of Nevada found that teaching students when they aren't too sleepy to learn could be an easy fix for improving education.
Drawing on the latest sleep research, investigators concluded that students start times should be 8:30 a.m. or later at age 10; 10:00 a.m. or later at 16; and 11:00 a.m. or later at 18. Implementing these start times should protect students from short sleep duration and chronic sleep deprivation, which are linked to poor learning and health problems.
These findings arise from a deeper understanding of circadian rhythms, better known as the body clock, and the genes associated with regulating this daily cycle every 24 hours.
"It is during adolescence when the disparity between inherent circadian rhythms and the typical working day come about," researchers said in the study. "Circadian rhythms determine our optimum hours of work and concentration, and in adolescence these shift almost three hours later."
These genetic changes in sleeping patterns were used to determine start times that are designed to optimize learning and health.
The United States Department of Health has also recently published an article in favor of changing the start times for Middle and High Schools.
The findings are detailed in the journal Learning, Media and Technology.
