Sleepy teenagers lack focus

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">with school students not getting sufficient sleep, their performance is getting adversely affected</span> stop waking up teenagers at the crack of dawn, and they make better grades in school. that’s the latest word from sleep scientists and education experts. by the early 1990s, researchers began to find surprisingly yet consistently, that the sleep patterns of adolescents in high school are discernibly different from those of younger children as well as from adults.their circadian rhythms, determined by the release of the hormone melatonin and other factors, tells them to stay up later and to get up later. from ages 12 years to 18 years, we see a steady pushing back of time at which young people go to bed, especially socially-active urban teenagers. it is not only for studies, it could be television, hobbies, or even ‘partying’. anything important or interesting is good enough to push back their bedtime. on the other hand, schools are sticking to their traditional regime of starting early, some even earlier than before. parents often experience considerable difficulty in waking up a teenager. while the pre-adolescent children wake up easily and seem eager to start the day, teenagers usually need several reminders and much prodding to get up. the countervailing belief that this is largely laziness on the kids’ part is rather misplaced. researchers have come to the unexpected conclusion that teenagers as a group need more sleep than pre-adolescents - that their bodies and minds require additional unconscious period to grow best. studies worldwide indicate that the optimal sleep time for most teenagers was around eight-and-a-quarter hours per night. in this context, william demant, the world’s leading sleep specialist, states that early high school start times are inherently ‘abusive’ to high school children. education experts believe an early start is best for the younger children, while a later start seems best for high school students. no wonder, many teenagers with early school timings, compounded with long travelling time, reach school with their brain essentially in sleep-mode. subjected to prolonged commuting time, high schoolers often have to get up as early as 6 am. in one recent american survey, half of the early-rising 10th graders were found to be in the ‘pathological’ range of sleepiness at 8 a m. researchers have observed that sleep-deprived kids display impaired ability to pay attention, to remember and to do calculations fast. it has been found that sleep-debt in teenagers leads to impulsive behaviour and losing control of the moment, which can have adverse consequences. in the light of these findings, efforts at congressional level have been made in the us to change the high school timings of 7.30 a m-8.00 a m and 3.00 p m-3.30 p m to 8.30 a m-9.00 a m and 4.00 p m-4.30 p m respectively. this would not only give the teenagers an extra hour of sorely-needed sleep but will help keep them off the streets from 5 p m to 6 p m, peak hours for juvenile delinquency. the voices of change include many students, some parents, medical and sleep experts. but it is strongly opposed by most teachers, as it would lengthen their work day; transportation officers as it could raise transport costs; and coaches, fearing reduction in extra-curricular activities. as a result the move has made little headway. the subject of school timings vis-a-vis the sleep pattern of teenagers has yet to trigger a serious debate in india. in fact, there has been a trend towards opening of high schools earlier than before, since the commuting time has been steadily rising in the big cities. not only this, teenagers are going to bed much later than before. the result - a youngster gets up fighting his biological clock and reaches school carrying a sleep debt. </div> </div>