This type of thinking is backwards. Ignoring modern human behavior is what has contributed to student (and faculty) performance problems for 50+ yrs. Poor performance in the earliest classes is a leading indicator for class performance overall (similar to broken window theory). Supposing (pretending?) that arbitrary time constraints will force behavior without confounding effects is the kind of willful ignorance that has perpetuated poor academic performance around the world.
I see it as yet another case where we're cutting against the grain of humanity for ascetic reasons. Bonus people in power love imposing stuff like that on other people.
Tell me: If you go to bed at 11pm and wake up at 7am every day, and then change time zones, do you magically go to bed at the new 11pm and wake up at the new 7am?
No, of course not.
Because the times you get tired and wake up have nothing to do with an arbitrary number on the wall.
> He says night workers are exposed to low light levels during the overnight shift, but as they encounter bright natural light on the journey home, their internal clocks lock on to the normal light-dark pattern that day shift workers are on. “So, you constantly have to override this sort of biological drive from the clock saying you should be asleep.”
> A lack of sunlight might stop a part of the brain called the hypothalamus working properly, which may affect the production of melatonin, serotonin, and the body's circadian rhythms.
> Our circadian pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) in the hypothalamus, is entrained to the 24-hour solar day via a pathway from the retina and synchronises our internal biological rhythms. Rhythmic variations in ambient illumination impact behaviours such as rest during sleep and activity during wakefulness as well as their underlying biological processes.
I guess the doctors quoted in these articles didn't work in multiple timezones then.
I'm not arguing that the sun isn't good for you or that bright lights don't make you feel of more awake. Of course they do.
My argument is that you can override this with good sleep hygiene, which teenagers don't have. You have to fix the hygiene problem, not the clock problem. They are trying to fix the symptoms and not the cause.
However, the ironic thing is you are arguing for teenagers to wake up early and NOT sleep in. It's the long wavelengths of light at sunrise and sunset that reset your circadian rhythm:
> Researchers said the wavelengths at sunrise and sunset have the biggest impact to brain centers that regulate our circadian clock and our mood and alertness
> I'm not arguing that the sun isn't good for you or that bright lights don't make you feel of more awake. Of course they do.
Shifting your arguments to different topics is only fooling yourself. You bring up points, which are refuted, then you claim it has nothing to do with the topic. That's disingenuous. Now you can look back and figure out where you've misstated the facts and you want to reset the conversation. Let's do that.
> My argument is that you can override this with good sleep hygiene
That's not an argument. That's a fact everyone agrees on.
> You have to fix the hygiene problem, not the clock problem.
This strategy that has been pursued for decades (and you have continued to parrot) is an unmitigated failure. There is an acute statistical academic penalty for setting the arbitrary school "early classes" starting time around ~6-7am^. This is primarily used by students who are either trying to catch up due to poor past performance or to get ahead by those pushing the upper bounds. There is a small cadre of students for which this schedule aligns with parental obligations, but it has been shrinking for decades. Due to the pareto distribution, you can guess who makes up the largest demographic.
> They are trying to fix the symptoms and not the cause.
Time to explore other strategies, as that's been a failure for a host of reasons. Let's start with the realities of being an adult vs child->young adult (youngling, in aggregate).
Adults manage a stable rhythm via self-training as part of a long term strategy that dovetails with stable biological development - which is negatively affected by other long-term changes like having children, ie mommy brain. Parents have to get up earlier than the earliest classes to prepare for transport. School transportation schedule tend to serve the median start time, not the boundary, if you didn't notice.
Younglings have increasing autonomy, hyperactive metabolism and erratic hormones. They have poor (or none) training for what is likely a temporary time in their life, along with the other stresses on themselves and the family.
The symptoms are the problem because you cannot address the cause. No amount of PSAs are going to help, because it's been tried and failed. Like most pundits, standing along the side and claiming "that won't work" or "we aren't doing X enough!" rather than trying to take a different action to generate new data, is compounding the failures.
^My parents and I had me in early classes for a few months before we communally agreed to stop. It wasn't effective learning for anyone in the classes, to say the least.
The thing that changes sleep isn't actually the clock changing. It's that in combination with "Our business/school opens at 8 AM every day" and the sun behaving decidedly different from that.
But anyone who has flown between the East Coast and West Coast of the US knows that the sun doesn't determine when you feel tired or when you wake up: your sleep hygiene does.
I used to fly to SF from Boston and wanted to go to bed at 7-8pm every night and then would wake up at 4am. Not because of sunlight but because my body was used to that schedule.
Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re atypical in this way? I’ve done flights from the US to Europe, and not slept during the flight and landed in the morning in Europe. While I’m initially tired, I’m unable to fall asleep in this situation. I spend the day walking around outside and eating at local time. After going to bed just a little earlier (wall time) than usual the first day, I’m adjusted because of the sun (aka the number on the wall), food intake, etc.
It's not just the GP. I've done both US Eastern to EU and US Eastern to US Pacific enough times to know how I respond.
I find the 3 hour difference to the west coast to be way harder to adjust to than the 5 or 6 hour (depending on destination) difference to Europe. I'm a zombie for a week going to California and spring right back to eastern time going home.
Going to Europe, it's about a day to fully kick over to the time change in either direction. Admittedly, it's a rough day headed east that usually involves an afternoon nap, but I've come to despise the three hour change to Pacific time far more.
That's a red eye you're talking about though. Yes, I normally try to fight through the day and go to sleep at a normalish time for the location. And I'm usually on a decent schedule within a day or two.
But if I take a short trip from the East Coast to the West Coast in the US, I often go to bed on the early side and wake up early.
Many studies claim the response people have to the manipulation of light intensity, color, and duration, does effect several aspects of the person. Sleep hygiene does seem to play a large role, but the sun is likely the largest contributor to the human body's roughly 24 hour circadian rhythm.
Ironically it's the wavelengths at sunrise which have the greatest affect. If teenagers are sleeping in they don't get to see these:
> Researchers said the wavelengths at sunrise and sunset have the biggest impact to brain centers that regulate our circadian clock and our mood and alertness.
Absolutely not my experience at all. Something as simple as the sun rising up sooner in summer makes me inclined to wake up and be active earlier, whereas winter makes me feel groggy and mediocre for several hours until the sun is actually up.
> You can't make teenagers sleep more by changing the number on the clock.
As a matter of fact, the article cites data from Seattle and Denver which shows that teenagers slept more after schools in these areas changed the number on the clock.
Then after a year or two it will be the same problem again.
Changing the number on the clock to get more sleep is like taking out a loan to pay down your debt: sure you will be able to pay off your housing and car payment today, but soon that loan you took out will come due.
> And in Cherry Creek, a Denver-area suburb, high schoolers slept about 45 minutes longer on average, and those improvements endured even two years after the change.
> Adolescents in the U.S. are chronically sleep-deprived, in part because most schools start too early.
The goal of changing the start time is to allow students to sleep more.
But changing the number on the clock doesn't mean students will sleep more. Allowing students to start at 8am instead of 7am will just mean they go to bed and hour later because teenagers are terrible about going to bed on time.
You're massively over-generalising there. Some will do that, sure. But this should make it better for some teenagers, without making it worse for others. That sounds like a good solution.
> changing the number on the clock doesn't mean students will sleep more
They aren’t changing the number on the clock like Daylight Saving Time did. They’re changing when you are required to arrive. They number on the clocks are staying fixed and that’s why it’s more likely to help.
You can't make teenagers sleep more by changing the number on the clock.