The word “sleep” to a high school or middle school student is described with words like “not enough of it,” “lacking” or maybe the occasional “Shoot me now.” Why? We don’t get enough of it. No, it’s not because we’re staying up doing homework, playing video games or hanging out with friends. It’s because our bodies don’t tire until later hours as we grow from children to adults, and we have to wake up at six in order to get to school by seven. Children, however, naturally wake up around the hour of eight in the morning after going to bed at ten and don’t have to be at school until eight. This twisted schedule needs to be changed, and all we have to do is switch the bus schedules.

According to The National Sleep Foundation, adolescents require just as much or more sleep than children (8.5 to 9.25 hours). As adolescents grow older, their melatonin (a hormone involving sleeping/waking schedules) secretions occur at a later time, which directly indicates a teenager’s problem with going to bed earlier at night. The body also responds to light very sensitively. If someone is not woken by or wakes with natural light, he or she will be less likely to stay awake and get to school on time due to the darkness outside. Darkness also serves as a potential accident for the bleary-eyed high school student in the early morning.

Teenagers’ circadian rhythms do not allow an easy waking schedule. Since circadian rhythm involves mental, physical and behavioral attributes of the human body and respond most to light and darkness in a person’s environment, the six a.m. waking schedule does not prove well to high school students. In addition to circadian rhythm, everyone’s sleep cycle occurs in 90 minute intervals, and since nobody can monitor the exact minute he or she goes to sleep, the intervals are often interrupted. An interrupted interval leads to more intense exhaustion and a slower pace in waking.

Not only is it unnatural for teenagers to wake this early, it is also detrimental to development in the young adult years. Teenagers develop what is called a “sleep debt” after their sleep schedule has been drastically changed from summer months to school months. Frontline refers to sleep debt as “an epidemic that is largely hidden.” Sleep researchers are trying to combat this exhaustion by urging schools to start later and include sleep issues in the curriculum.

A research study where Fayette county high schools delayed starting by one hour showed a 14.3% jump in students getting eight or more hours of sleep (from 35.7% to 50%). Increase in sleep improves performance in testing and athletics. Students are also less likely to fall asleep at the wheel on the way to school.

It isn’t fair that the Board of Education won’t make the switch, because it is proving its detriment in students’ well being. I remember waking up early and not feeling extreme exhaustion when I was in elementary school, and I remember seeing the toll the changing sleep schedule had on my peers as we entered middle school. Students and teachers would benefit from the change, so why not encourage natural sleeping cycles by reversing the bus schedule?