Secret to raising well behaved teens? Maximize their zzzzz's

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140926085830.htm

Date: September 26, 2014
Source: Taylor & Francis
Summary:
While American pediatricians warn sleep deprivation can stack the deck against teenagers, a new study reveals youth’s irritability and laziness aren’t down to attitude problems but lack of sleep. This paper exposes the negative consequences of sleep deprivation caused by early school bells, and shows that altering education times not only perks up teens’ mood, but also enhances learning and health.

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But things drastically change during adolescence, when 'the conflict between social and biological time is greater than at any point in our lives', continue the academics. Our sleep-wake cycle, or circadian rhythm, is the result of a complex balance between states of alertness and sleepiness regulated by a part of the brain called Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SNC); in puberty, shifts in our body clocks push optimal sleep later into the evening, making it extremely difficult for most teenagers to fall asleep before 11.00pm. This, coupled with early school starts in the morning, results in chronically sleep-deprived and cranky teens as well as plummeting grades and health problems.

There is a body of evidence showing the benefits of synchronizing education times with teens' body clocks; interestingly, while 'studies of later start times have consistently reported benefits to adolescent sleep health and learning, there [is no evidence] showing early starts have a positive impact on such things', add the researchers. In spite of examples corroborating this theory -- crucial is the case of the United States Air Force Academy where a later start policy has been instrumental in trumpeting the marks of a group of 18-19 year olds -- educators still fail to grasp it's not laziness that keeps teens in bed in the morning but their biological clocks.

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