Imagine waking up to a buzzing alarm at 6:30 in the morning. Groggily, you think to yourself, if I could just sleep for 30 more minutes… You try to go on about your day as planned but seem to need just a few more hours to start functioning at peak potential. We’ve all been there, waking up way earlier than we want and finding ourselves needing an extra cup of coffee to kick start our bodies. For the average teenager, however, this happens nearly every single day.

According to neuroscience professor Matthew Walker, “Asking a teenager to be awake and trying to absorb information at 8:30 in the morning in some ways is like asking an adult to wake up at 4 o’clock in the morning”. However, the average high school start time is at eight in the morning which creates a multitude of different problems. An early start time forces students to miss out on much needed sleep, which is critical to a healthy body and being academically successful. Studies show that teenagers need around 10 hours of sleep every day, but since the way their bodies are wired makes them tired later, it’s pretty hard to fall asleep early. These two problems combine to make early morning Mondays a mess of grogginess and a rush to get to school on time. Pushing back school start times would allow teenagers to satisfy their natural body cycles of sleeping later while maintaining their 10 hours of sleep.

This is further justified as students would not be the only ones impacted by pushing back school start times. Parents of teenagers would also greatly benefit from this change. Many reported better sleep quality with later times and an average of around 20 minutes extra sleep per night. There are, however, some popular arguments against starting school later. Namely, the fact that parents of kids in elementary school would be affected by this change. However, studies show that parents of elementary students actually had higher quality of sleep with delayed start times. On top of not having no sacrifice to their sleep quality or feelings of tiredness in the morning, parents of elementary students who both sleep and wake up early perfectly align with their work shift in the morning.

It's clear that starting school later provides a multitude of benefits while creating little to no problems. The next time a teenager complains about a lack of sleep, or a parent berates a child for a low grade, think about how a later start time could benefit them. And, if you are in any way impacted by this change, maybe it’ll save you a few extra dollars on your everyday morning coffee trip.