NYHS students have been suffering from a lack of sleep. This is why NYHS should start later.

Here at NYHS, the 20 students who answered our survey got, on average, 6.81 hours of sleep. Something that contributes to this is having to get up earlier to commute to school. Most students have to drive an hour or more to school, which is a factor in how much sleep students get.

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), a teenager should get 8–10 hours of sleep. At least a quarter of the school gets less than that.

If school started an hour or half an hour later, this would give more time for studying and doing homework. School starting later will help students get more sleep. 

In humans, our circadian rhythms, the sleep-wake cycle, help our minds and bodies maintain an internal “clock.” The internal clock tells us “eat, sleep, rest, and work in a world that spins once on its axis approximately every 24 hours,” wrote University of Washington journalist James Urton in his article “Teens get more sleep, show improved grades and attendance with later school start time, researchers find.”

Blue light is another factor affecting students’ sleep. Students at NYHS have to do homework and sometimes study for a quiz the next day. Most of the homework is on the computer. Twelve out of 20 students who responded to the survey do homework before bed. Most of the homework that students get is online, which delays their sleep. 

NYHS sophomore Daniel Galili said, “It’s really hard for me to get myself to go to sleep any earlier than midnight, and it’s usually about one a.m. before I fall asleep.” This is because he gets home at 5:30, and then he has to do homework. Daniel says he has bad sleep habits, and waking up early for school doesn’t help it.

Most people do a nightly scroll on their phone before bed or do homework on the computer. Electronics, like a phone and a computer, produce blue light. Blue light delays melatonin production, confuses your body’s internal clock and shortens sleep duration. Delaying melatonin production makes it harder to fall asleep, and that shifts your sleep schedule later. 

In the survey of 20 students, 13 students do homework when they come home from school,  and 14 out of the 20 scroll on their phones before bed. 

Our sleep gets affected because of puberty, too. Before puberty, a kid is tired around 8–9 p.m. Afterwards, that clock shifts 1–2 hours later, so they will probably fall asleep around 10-11 p.m. This also causes stress to get more sleep, which leads to even more sleep deprivation.

I, personally, stay up late. In my old public middle school, classes started at 8:45 a.m., and I still struggle to adjust to waking up at 6 a.m. to take the school shuttle. Most of the time, I get home at 5:30 p.m. because of traffic and buses, and I still have to do homework for the next day. Additionally, on some days, I have extracurricular activities and sports, which also cause me to return home later, resulting in less time for homework.

Another study from the University of Washington showed that starting school later by 30 minutes to an hour improved grades. They figured out that asking a teenager to be awake at 7:30 a.m. was like asking an adult to wake up at 5:30 a.m. 

Starting school earlier leads to worse grades and falling asleep in class. Instead of starting school at eight in the morning, we can shift that to 8:30 a.m. if we remove Torat Chaim, the light blue block. A halachic day usually starts 72 minutes after sunrise, and the Shulchan Aruch says the preferred time is to pray at Shacharit at the end of the 3rd halachic hour, which is from 8-10 a.m.

This will help students have a good night’s rest and be able to be ready for school and tefillah.

The current early start time negatively impacts students’ health, focus and academic performance. Studies showed that teenagers need more sleep, and blue light, long commutes and demanding schedules make it harder for them to get it. By starting school later, we will be promoting students’ well-being and academic success, but it will also respect the halachic timing for Shacharit.