Our district has pushed back our school times by an entire hour— but why? What does this do for us?  The Journal of Neuroscience conducted a research project which altered the sleep schedules of mice.. Results? The study revealed that 25% of the locus coeruleus, the part of the brain responsible for alertness and cognitive thinking, was permanently damaged. [4]  This isn’t to say that mice and humans are exactly alike, however,it puts into perspective what our sleep schedules can do to us. Now we know that irregular sleep patterns are detrimental to the brain. So the question to ask is: Is it better to stay up late or wake up early?? It is important to weigh the pros and cons of both sides, and how each option affects us high school students undergoing changes in academics, lifestyles and stress.

To begin, staying up late can’t be blamed on the habit of procrastination. While it is a critical part of how students today choose to spend their time, an internal alarm clock can be due to genetic makeup. [2] This is called a chronotype, or as the Sleep Foundation puts it, “the natural inclination of your body to sleep at a certain time”.  This doesn’t mean we have no input when we sleep. While chronotypes play a role, 50% of a chronotype is genetic, while the other 50% is simply the way we choose to wake up or sleep [2]. Procrastination is the act of pushing a task at hand aside due to distraction. However, people’s sleep schedules are a little more complicated than that. Interestingly, there is something called “revenge” bedtime. This is when time is spent wasted or free time is limited during the day, so people choose to push this back to the nighttime to give them the free time they think is needed. This is specifically towards students that spend 7 hours a day at school, not including extracurriculars, sports, volunteering, and such. With limited free time, they choose to push back their bedtimes, which gives revenge bedtime its name. Another reason that students can have difficulty sleeping is due to their phones or computers. Electronic devices have also influenced the rise of procrastination. Many Ridge High School Students claim that their bedtimes extend to 1 or 2 AM, a result of scrolling through their phones. Harvard Health says that the blue light from the screen suppresses secretion of melatonin, a hormone produced according to stimuli for response to darkness. [7] Putting away those screens can be the first step to getting proper sleep. Exposure to light in the morning wakes up the brain. But being exposed to light during the nighttime can have the opposite effect. [2] What this means is that the contrast of light to the darkness can strain our eyes, and while it can be good for us to pay attention to our work, it also wakes up our brain, making it harder to sleep. While studying can last for a long time as well, screens are unconsciously pulled out in between every few assignments or readings, and “study time” can be more like “screen time”. For students, this is simply just a newspaper article about sleep schedules. Most likely, readers will not put into effect healthier sleep habits. 

A few solutions on how to improve bedtime schedules could include:

1. Avoiding caffeine in the afternoon
2. Not looking at screens an hour before sleep
3. Picking up new habits in replacement of doom scrolling, such as reading before bed.
4. Those with later chronotypes can go to bed a few minutes earlier than the day before, creating a gradual change in habit. [2]

Sleeping late and waking up early can have lasting effects on academics, too. It can make some people moodier, or decrease cognitive function [3], allowing for more visible mood swings. [5] The brain needs time to recharge and to rest, and without sleep, cannot work to its full capacity. [1] So it is not necessarily sleeping late that’s the problem, but rather, the time crunch between the solidified wakeup schedule for school, and the more loose time in the evening to decide when to sleep. It is difficult to make a change, as willpower is lowest at nighttime, but it is possible. Are there any good effects on sleeping late? Studies suggest that those who sleep later may have better social networks and are generally healthy. Dr. Varga, an associate professor of medicine, even says, “The true data on this is not very strong, and a lot of it is extrapolated from people in extreme situations, like shift workers,” said Dr. Varga. “It’s still not clear how serious the risks are for people whose patterns may be just a few hours off, so I think some caution is warranted when you’re interpreting these studies.” [2] So while studies are leaning towards early bird schedules, nothing is truly confirmed. 

At the same time, what makes waking up early so much better than staying up late? The rationale of it is that those who sleep early and wake up early will tend to get more sleep. School is at a set time, which means that the alarm clock will always remain constant. What can really change is the sleep time, which makes sleeping earlier a better option. [2] Thinking logically, it can also lead to better grades. Those who stay up late are also more likely to party or do more dangerous things, meaning that those who wake up early will likely sleep early, and those who sleep early live diligently, suggesting better grades. [5] In the morning, energy and willpower is the highest, creating opportunities for building up good habits. In contrast to students who sleep later, those with an early sleep schedule also have better mental health. [5] Cons of sleeping early? This creates a smaller slip of time, for those who come back from sports or extracurriculars at times as late as 6 or 7. Sometimes, nothing can be done except sleep later. This is why it’s important to weigh the options of both staying up late and waking up early. 

By weighing the pros and cons of late sleepers and early birds, people can understand the effects of health that these sleep schedules can have on them, and what they can do about it. Late sleepers struggle with mental health and procrastination, but at the same time, seem to have a bigger social network. Early birds are better with efficiency, but can facetime crunches during the afternoon. Ridge High School has moved the time back so that school starts later, meaning that our sleep schedules can move back, too. This change can positively affect both early birds by giving them  more time to study, and later sleepers can finally get  their well deserved sleep.

Sources:

1. Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: Definition & Psychology | Sleep Foundation.
2. Is Staying Up Late Bad for You?
3. The Night Owl Dilemma: Pros and Cons of Staying Up Late | by Nuskin  486 | Medium
4. https://www.bswhealth.com/blog/what-staying-up-late-is-doing-to-you
5. The Pros and Cons of Waking up Early
6. Why Waking Up Earlier Isn’t Necessarily Better
7. Screen Time and the Brain | Harvard Medical School.