
Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks - dpflan
http://news.berkeley.edu/2018/03/29/social-jetlag/
======
endymi0n
I used to have lots of problems getting up early and always championed later
times. Growing up through my twenties, it was great seeing finally seeing more
and more evidence for a later school start and I was hopeful for future teens.

But it wasn't until my first kid that I finally understood that school doesn't
start this early because it's good for the learning experience.

It starts this early so parents can get their kids to school and start working
afterwards, without getting fired.

~~~
brightball
Schools can still help with this by trying to schedule the core academic stuff
later in the the day and the less mentally intense stuff like PE earlier in
the morning.

My kids' elementary school actually does this. They tell parents "if your
child has a doctor's appointment or needs to be out for a portion of the day,
schedule it at the beginning or end of the day to make sure they don't miss
anything important."

~~~
WhompingWindows
The problem with that is rotating schedules is more economically efficient
than loading all the class-types onto one time of the day. This would mean you
need more PE teachers in the morning, more math teachers in the mid-day.
There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those
periods rotate day-to-day.

One interesting follow-up study could be to compare night-owls/morning-larks
in rotating schedule schools vs schools with fixed schedules. We could then
see do night-owls do significantly worse in the classes they only take in the
morning, vs night-owls who take classes rotating throughout diff periods of
the day?

~~~
rastapasta42
The actual problem began when humans invented candles and lightbulbs and
started staying up past 8pm, and going to bed at inconsistent hours, therefore
waking up tired the next mornings.

Our optimal sleeping time is based on the rotation of earth around the sun. We
have removed our brain's natural sleep trigger (lack of light) so our sleep
habits have been getting out of whack for the last couple of hundred years.

~~~
irrational
What is really interesting is that human's natural sleep cycle is not to sleep
continuously for 8 hours. Our natural sleep cycle is to go to bed when it gets
dark and then to wake up for a few hours in the middle of the night and get up
and do things (apparently this is also the time when most sex happened since
other family members in the same room were still asleep) and then go back to
sleep and get back up at dawn.

~~~
b3n
Does this mean the natural sleep cycle time is a lot less in summer than it is
in winter?

Why would other family members had been asleep? Wouldn't this natural sleep
cycle have applied to everyone?

~~~
exDM69
I live at 60 degrees Northern latitude, and I sleep a lot more in the winter.
And it's really difficult in the summer too, because it never gets dark and
you need to go to bed to get up in the morning.

For some reason it's not difficult for me to sleep past sunrise, but very hard
to go to bed before sunset or wake before sunrise. And some people are the
opposite.

------
zaroth
Our school district just spent the last year trying to convince parents we
should shuffle around start times to make high school later and elementary
school earlier.

It was a complete clusterfuck. Both teacher and parents alike at both the
elementary and the high schools all had a million reasons why it couldn’t
possibly work. Since there are a limited number of buses which are shared, you
can’t move one start time without moving the other.

It came up at every school event, sports practice, kids party, to the point
where I would just walk away when people starting bitching about it one way or
another.

The biggest issue was we had a new superintendent who wanted to “start a
dialogue” about the start times rather than actually make a policy change. It
took up hundreds of hours in PTO, Administrative, and Town Hall meetings and
of course ended up in absolutely no change in the end. Everyone’s opinion of
course had to be heard, whether it was a longer commute that a teacher would
have, or then not having time to drop off their own child before getting to
class, or impacting afternoon sports, or the something about the bus route,
or... Of course none of the debate actually addressed if students would
possible _learn_ better from it.

I was so glad when they finally sent out the email saying they were dropping
it just so that I wouldn’t have to hear the constant bickering.

It was like an engineering team with no lead and a non-technical manager
arguing over what DBMS to use where no decision could be made until _everyone_
agreed we had the “right” solution!

~~~
robterrell
It's happening where I live too. It's amazing how quickly the discussion moves
past "what's best for students" and into the "it's annoying to me personally"
and "when I was a kid, we suffered" conversations.

~~~
RHSeeger
To be fair, "I got fired from my job because I couldn't get there on time
anymore because school starts too late" isn't particularly good for the
children of the people getting fired either.

~~~
mbrameld
One person's issue with work is worth compromising the learning of all the
other children? That's not exactly what I'd call fair.

~~~
sotojuan
Not everyone is a programmer in the Valley or East Coast that can just Slack
their manager "will be an hour late today because X!" and everything is fine.
For the vast majority of people, even white collar employees, not being at
work at 9 a few times may mean termination.

~~~
burfog
It seems that such people can't possibly deal with legal problems, medical
problems, car problems...

It's not as if you can schedule such things. Well, you could add more problems
on a schedule I guess! You can't avoid the bad surprises.

~~~
fwip
That's very true. Many workers have to go to work with medical problems, take
desperate measures if they have car issues, and lose their job if they get
arrested.

If you've already missed 1 day for "my car broke down" and another for "I was
vomiting", that one time you need to get the kid to school might be your 3rd
strike.

~~~
iovrthoughtthis
I can't help but think American work culture / expectations are pretty toxic.

~~~
chris_va
It can be this bad, but it's not very common.

Usually it happens in a job with fixed hours. Are you opening up the store in
the morning? You'd better be there on time.

~~~
jjeaff
Exactly. Or even production line workers. You can cost the company big money
if they have to stop the line for you.

There are lots of jobs where it is not unreasonable to require punctuality on
a pretty regular basis.

------
patorjk
> night owls were especially vulnerable, many appearing so chronically jet-
> lagged that they were unable to perform optimally at any time of day.

I experienced this with an 8am biology class I was required to take. It
wrecked my whole day. About 1/3 of the way through I just started skipping the
class and then later getting notes of the lecture from a friend of mine. It
ended up working dramatically well. I got an A, while my friend who got up
every MWF to take the notes, got a B. It was kind of a wild result since my
studying was based almost entirely on her notes. I hadn't given it too much
thought, but it would make sense if being sleep deprived is what hurt her in
this case.

~~~
stephen_g
My worst semester at University I had three 8am lectures... I knew I was a bit
of a night owl, but at this point I didn't realise that I actually had a
severe sleep disorder. I had just assumed that what people said (you just have
to be disciplined, just go to be earlier, etc.) was potentially true, which
was demoralising. It was actually pretty liberating to find out about
differences in circadian rhythms. I still get similar bad advice, which is
about as useful as "just be happier" is to a clinically depressed person...

~~~
heurist
College was rough for me, I felt best sleeping on a 3am to noon schedule and
half of my required classes could only be scheduled before noon. I managed to
get through it but still felt like I was unable to learn as effectively as I
could have. I also recall being a zombie in high school because I was forced
to wake up at 6 every day and could not fall asleep until midnight, and at the
time my body required much more sleep than I was getting...

From age 12 to 23 I thought something was wrong with me as a human because I
was tired, depressed,and anxious but I've learned that when I sleep well those
symptoms disappear. Life has been much better since I gained more control over
my schedule.

~~~
mrhappyunhappy
I remember in my high school classes kids were always super tired in am. On
many occasions where we had subs come in and put on a movie, many kids would
just fall asleep. I had to fake being awake by pretending to be looking down
between the desk and my legs and when the teacher walked by I would just “pick
up” my pen and get right back to work - I was sleeping the whole time.

------
Balgair
This study was done on _college_ students, not elementary and HS students,
college students at _Cal_. There are a lot of caveats here and trying to apply
them to elementary education is good, but outside the scope.

Aside: If you really want test scores to improve, give the kids food. My SO is
an educator and she's had kids come in that only get food at school. All
weekend they may only eat a bag of Cheetos, sometimes up to 2/3 kids on Monday
mronings. School breakfast and lunch are sometime the only food they get.

[https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-
chalkboard/2017/...](https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-
chalkboard/2017/05/03/how-the-quality-of-school-lunch-affects-students-
academic-performance/)

~~~
WhompingWindows
Yes, feeding low-income students is critical. However, we have to ask if the
school-lunches provided are indeed better than a bag of Cheetos? I worked in
the top 3 worst middle school in my state in the poorest city in my state, and
I found their school lunches to largely be processed carbs like pizza,
burger+fries with no veggies. The veggies that were on offer were in tiny
sauce-containers that hardly any of the kids grabbed. Furthermore, those
veggies were usually carrots or cucumbers, the former of which is high in
glycemic index, and the latter of which contains hardly any micronutrients.
So, from a nutritional perspective, yes the calories are good for the low
income students, but the food was still terrible for them overall.

~~~
Afton
> However, we have to ask if the school-lunches provided are indeed better
> than a bag of Cheetos?

I think that we can answer that question with a fairly emphatic 'yes'.

------
wpasc
I disagree with ideas that school schedules should shift later. I am a night
owl myself, but our "natural" sleep cycle certainly more or less falls in line
with school times. We have fully disrupted our circadian rhythms with our
lifestyles and especially screens/lights at night. Before artificial light,
our sleep/wake schedule was set by the sun.

I know we live in a different world today, but I feel like shifting our
schedule because of poor sleep hygiene and bad light habits is kind of
reinforcing a bad habit. Whose to say that the shift wouldn't just perpetuate
itself even after a shift of 1 hour later.

~~~
cgriswald
It is a mischaracterization to say this is all the result of bad habits.
Asking teens and young adults to perform between 6 and 9 is like asking a
fully mature adult to perform between 3 and 6.

> I am a night owl myself, but our "natural" sleep cycle certainly more or
> less falls in line with school times.

This is absolutely _not true_ for adolescents continuing through young
adulthood. Adolescents _naturally_ have a delay in morning alertness levels
compared to fully mature adults and other children and also have sleepiness
set in more slowly/later in the evening than either other group. It is not
(necessarily) poor sleep hygiene which causes teens to stay up later, but
their own biological processes.

> Before artificial light, our sleep/wake schedule was set by the sun.

This seems to be an argument in favor of changing times. My highschool started
at 7:10. Assuming I woke up an hour before to shower, dress, and catch the
bus, that means I had to wake before the sun _every day of my highschool
career_. The only time the sun rose earlier than 6:10 was during the summer
when I didn't have school.

~~~
dcosson
> It is not (necessarily) poor sleep hygiene which causes teens to stay up
> later, but their own biological processes.

I'm genuinely curious about this, do you have links to evidence of this?
You're asserting a certain causal order, but everything I've seen such as the
article this thread is purely observational so doesn't say anything about the
causality of it.

~~~
cgriswald
Sure, read this review:
[https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/216538](https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/216538)

Abstract: Sleep deprivation among adolescents is epidemic. We argue that this
sleep deprivation is due in part to pubertal changes in the homeostatic and
circadian regulation of sleep. These changes promote a delayed sleep phase
that is exacerbated by evening light exposure and incompatible with aspects of
modern society, notably early school start times. In this review of human and
animal literature, we demonstrate that delayed sleep phase during puberty is
likely a common phenomenon in mammals, not specific to human adolescents, and
we provide insight into the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon.

------
Grieverheart
During college, I used to play WoW. I think my biological clock was messed up
because of it, not because that was my natural biological rhythm. Also,
because of the amount of hours I put into WoW, I did not have many hours left
to study, affecting my academic performance. Thus, I wonder if the performance
is really linked to the biological rhythm, or rather that the biological
rhythm is a sign of activities impacting academic performance.

~~~
caust1c
I'm with you there. I think the article is bullshit. We are in control of when
we go to sleep, and ultimately that determines our circadian rhythm. Not some
mysterious unknown force. The correlation with alcohol and drug abuse is a
cause not a result.

I was very much in the camp of playing video games all night long but I didn't
kid myself about early class times being the cause for my struggle.

* Disclaimer: IANA doctor/biologist. Point me to a study that says we can't control when we go to sleep (aside from other health factors including insomnia).

~~~
cma
There are plenty of studies on what night shift does to people who have a
normal circadian rythym. It isn't pretty.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Yes, but is that the jet lag effect from repeatedly switching times or just
being awake at night?

~~~
e12e
Both. And the social strain of not being able to meet people that work on
regular schedules.

I seem to recall that working just regular night shifts (eg 2300-0700) will
cut an average 5 years off your life. Rotating shifts with half+ during night
is even worse.

------
AStellersSeaCow
I don't doubt that the findings are the case, I've experienced it myself and
seen it in plenty others. What I would've liked to see in the paper, though,
is more proof of the cause-and-effect relationship's weight here: do people
who naturally stay up late get worse grades, or do people who get worse grades
end up with worse sleep habits?

I'd guess there's some degree of both, but without the study being more
longitudinal (eg, tracking the same population across their entire time in
college to see how their grades and sleep habits relate) it's hard to say.
Purely anecdotally, I've seen people who start struggling (for reasons that
have nothing to do with sleep) drift into a depressive/withdrawn existence
that includes insomnia and sleeping late.

~~~
Symmetry
There are _tons_ of lab experiments showing people's ability to learn goes
down when they're sleep deprived. Memory consolidation seems to be one of the
principle reasons sleep and given all the in-lab double blind studies it would
be amazing if people getting less sleep didn't do worse in school. Which isn't
to say that this particular paper or article proves that.

~~~
matwood
> There are tons of lab experiments showing people's ability to learn goes
> down when they're sleep deprived.

I get that, but instead of immediately jumping to sleeping later maybe we
should look at why kids appear to be going to bed later. All of the devices
and distractions have likely pushed people to stay up later and later. Maybe
the fix is not to move school times, but have parents take devices away at a
reasonable time.

~~~
Symmetry
Generally speaking young children will tend to go to bed earlier and wake up
earlier than their parents and adolescents will go to bed later and wake up
later. It's true that electric lights and computer screens have exacerbated
the problem of teenagers wanting to sleep in but they didn't cause them in the
first place.

------
timerol
Looking at the chart in the middle of the article brings up more questions
than it answers. Maybe it's the weird 3D perspective, but it looks like all
groups get better grades in evening classes. Furthermore, it looks like
finches do better in all categories than larks, and owls always do the worst.
This seems to argue against the points that the article puts forth.

~~~
knightofmars
"Owls performed worst of all the groups due to chronic social jet lag"

------
PebblesHD
I’ve found these recent studies interesting in that they seem to confirm what
many young people have been saying for a long time. I’ve always struggled to
wake myself up of a morning and found that most classes earlier than about
10am were pretty much forgotten come end of semester. Not sure how American
schools organise timetables but the two weekly cycle of class times went some
way to compensate for this by changing which class was first meaning you
wouldn’t fall drastically behind in one specifically because it was earliest.
Things have of course changed since leaving school and my sleep patterns have
changed significantly, and I can see immediately how trying to make a school
student conform to such a cycle would be a poor idea, but I wonder if some
time soon I’ll forget being young and start seeing the world like so many
leaders seem to with no regard at all for what it was like growing up.

------
JepZ
> It may be time to tailor students’ class schedules to their natural
> biological rhythms...

Why does everybody want to change the world around them and not just adapt
themselves to the world, e.g.:

'To earn better grades, students should sync their biological rhythm to their
class schedules.'

While some might argue that it is not easy to do that, I would respond that
such skill is invaluable for your life ahead. Granted, not _every_ job
requires such a skill, but many do.

From my own experience, I can tell that exercising discipline to go to bed
early paid off for my work experience and there are few things I hate more
than being tired at work: While work hours wear on, you are not getting done
anything either.

~~~
digitaltrees
Because the body has a cycle of hormone release that makes people alert or
tired at different times and trying to change it is almost impossible. There
is a theory that we evolved different sleep schedules so that one member of a
tribe would be awake at any point in time to be alert to danger. This is not a
question of mere will or discipline. You try staying awake until 7am every
night and see how it feels.

~~~
JepZ
Then humans must be different in that respect. In fact, I changed my sleep
schedules multiple times in the last two years alone (from getting up at 6am
to going to bed at 6am). The only constant seems to be that I require 8 hours
of sleep. For a few days I can get by with 6 hours, but after a week or so
with less than 8 hours I get kinda sick for as long as I don't catch up.

However, while I feel that my body has some kind of cycle too, for me it is
possible to adjust it over the course of a few weeks.

~~~
barry-cotter
Night shift workers die younger than people whose shift rotates die younger
than people who work a day shift.

And one way people acclimate to different sleep schedules is by forgetting
what not feeling like shit feels like. People do not acclimate to commuting,
they forget what not feeling terrible all the time feels like.

~~~
JepZ
Well, I think there are more factors to earlier dying night shift workers than
just their sleep cycle. To name a few:

\- less sunlight (vitamin D)

\- lower payment

\- lower education

Those might all affect the life expectancy and if night shift workers die
earlier than those with rotating shifts, it is obviously a sign that not the
_change_ is the main factor for the lower life expectancy.

From my own experience I can tell you, that I neither forgot what feeling like
shit feels nor was I forced to change my sleep cycles by some exterior
factors. I agree to some extend with your examples, but I don't think those
are the only options to acclimate to different sleep schedules.

------
anotheryou
I like how it shows that getting up early ruins the whole day.

I have to come an hour early for a meeting every other week and it's always a
challenging day...

Getting up ~9am is the point at which it doesn't effect my performance anymore
(I'd still prefer shifting my sleep phase even further). Sadly this only
worked for a job once in my career.

~~~
justherefortart
Go to bed earlier.

I get up early and have since High School. All I do is make sure I go to bed
at a reasonable hour.

Going to work, lunch, home early is friggin awesome. Avoiding rush hour,
saving me roughly 1 hour a day in traffic, is fantastic. Plus it gives me time
to do any personal things in the early afternoon without affecting my work
schedule.

~~~
stephen_g
This is exactly the kind of thing people with delayed sleep cycles hear all
the time. There is a group of people for which your solution is _impossible_.
Your circadian rhythm is compatible with that kind of schedule, and that's
great. Some other people can't do that. I mean, I can wake up early regularly
but eventually get into a sort of perpetual feeling just like jet-lag with
symptoms of sleep deprivation (even when going to bed earlier and falling
asleep early due to exhaustion).

It was actually funny, after one of my recent trips to Europe from Australia,
when I came back my (actual) jet lag weirdly landed me in a sort of normal
cycle for a week and a bit. It was truely a bizarre experience - I literally
cannot remember a time in my life (I'm almost 30) where I could regularly wake
up before 9am and being able to go to sleep before 12:30 to 1:30 am and feel
normal. But for this little while I was waking up between 7:30-8:30am and
going to sleep between 10pm and 11pm. It quickly wore off (discipline doesn't
have anything to do with it, you just can't fight your physiology) but it was
really interesting and eye-opening experience...

~~~
__david__
I'm the same way. I've had a couple times in my life where things lined up
with the rest of the world. Waking up in the 6 to 7am range and going to sleep
before midnight. It was interesting to live on a "normal" schedule for a
while. And also _very_ convenient--normally all appointments happen happen
after noon which halves the available window right off the bat. But my
schedule always slides to my natural rhythm.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
_But my schedule always slides to my natural rhythm._

I struggle to understand why, is that a decision you are making either
consciously or unconsciously, or is it something about your environment?

~~~
stephen_g
For me, either I can’t fall asleep earlier no matter how good ‘sleep hygiene’
I have, how little screen time before bed, how long I avoid caffeine for, etc.
or if I do fall asleep earlier because I’m exhausted I seem to get lower
quality sleep and it gets harder and harder to wake up on time.

For me, it’s absolutely not a conscious choice, and it hasn’t changed
depending on the level of stress I’ve been under, and I’ve tried all sorts of
things across living in three different places over the years...

I eventually found sleep science research that suggests that it is just
extremely difficult to go against your natural circadian rhythm. I guess the
problem for delayed people (and if I recall the statistics correctly, the
severity of my sleep cycle delay is such that it only affects something like
2-5% of adults, but I think more than 10 or 20 percent of adolescents) is that
anyone can be lazy and sleep in, but it’s far, far harder to go the other way
- so the majority of the population with a normal or early cycle can just go
to bed earlier and function normally waking up earlier, but it doesn’t work
for everyone.

------
misterbowfinger
original paper:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23044-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23044-8)

abstract:

Misalignments between endogenous circadian rhythms and the built environment
(i.e., social jet lag, SJL) result in learning and attention deficits.
Currently, there is no way to assess the impact of SJL on learning outcomes of
large populations as a response to schedule choices, let alone to assess which
individuals are most negatively impacted by these choices. We analyzed two
years of learning management system login events for 14,894 Northeastern
Illinois University (NEIU) students to investigate the capacity of such
systems as tools for mapping the impact of SJL over large populations while
maintaining the ability to generate insights about individuals. Personal daily
activity profiles were validated against known biological timing effects, and
revealed a majority of students experience more than 30 minutes of SJL on
average, with greater amplitude correlating strongly with a significant
decrease in academic performance, especially in people with later apparent
chronotypes. Our findings demonstrate that online records can be used to map
individual- and population-level SJL, allow deep mining for patterns across
demographics, and could guide schedule choices in an effort to minimize SJL’s
negative impact on learning outcomes.

------
sk1pper
Isn’t your chronotype fairly mutable though? With some dedication and a couple
weeks you can adjust to waking up whenever. Especially at college age.

Obviously lifestyle could be limiting if you’re trying to start waking up at
6am, but if you’re optimizing for GPA, then you’re gonna have to make
lifestyle sacrifices anyway

~~~
PeterStuer
I did that. It took me seven years, so 'a couple of weeks' is a bit of an
understatement.

------
ada1981
Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Favor After School Football Practice.

Seriously, much of America is so entranced by high school football that entire
district schedules are oriented around ensuring ample practice time after
school.

It determines bus schedules and school start times for the entire district and
all students.

~~~
nemothekid
The article doesn't support that, it doesn't make sense for a vast majority of
school districts - especially inner city ones.

Another commenter made more sense - early class times give parents time before
work to prepare their kids for school. This football angle is ridiculous. If
it were true, wouldn't colleges and universities suffer from the same
standard?

~~~
ada1981
Oh, it's ridiculous, and a pretty well known reason for anyone who has studied
US public education.

Here is one such article:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/how-
sc...](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/how-school-start-
times-affect-high-school-athletics/522537/)

You'll find case after case of local newspapers reporting on school board
meetings where requests to move the start time were met with fierce opposition
by athletic directors, etc.

Both my parents were educators (my mom ran special education for a school
district, my father ended his career as Dean of the School of Ed @ Edinboro)
and for a time I ran the countries top education blog. All three of us
encountered this obstacle to sensible school scheduling across a variety of
different schools and districts.

I'd say it's the leading obstacle that I've seen when you look at local
district opposition.

~~~
ada1981
"High-school sports represent one of the most consistent roadblocks barring
change."

from Atlantic article.

------
monster_group
I am more than half way through the book "Why we sleep?" by Matthew Walker and
it is not a surprise to me that misalignment of circadian rhythm with class
schedules results in poor grades. The book goes into great detail on the
importance of getting eight hours of sleep on a regular schedule. Getting less
than eight hours of sleep is tied to every imaginable disease and poor memory.
I highly recommend reading the book.

[https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501...](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501144316)

~~~
merinowool
Does it offer any solution?

------
ChuckMcM
In my experience at Intel where people were reprimanded if they weren't in the
office before 8 AM I also saw bad code tied to times that didn't match the
developer's biological clock :-).

------
projektir
Unfortunately, the summary on this issue appears to be "nobody cares".
Including the parents themselves. Teenagers do not really have rights so it's
going to be very hard to change this.

------
polskibus
I wonder if the study corrects for students that just stay up late for
parties, etc., and just strip themselves of sleep when it could be avoided.
It's quite easy to move your bioclock forward bit by bit, esp.for social
reasons. It is very hard to roll it back (some studies suggest it's better to
just roll it forward more and more instead)

------
macmccann
The problem in college is bad, but the problem is some high schools is even
worse. At high schools without block scheduling, every day might be a 6 am
alarm to get to school by 7:00.

~~~
froindt
Block scheduling was absolutely amazing, and I'm so glad I had access to it.
My school did "modified block" with skinny classes (40 minutes) and blocks (85
minute). The only skinny classes were math, music, and foreign language, all
of which seem to have a big benefit from going the full year. The concept of
trying to do a chemistry or physics lab in 40 minutes sounded awful.

My high school ran from 8:45-3:10. Morning activities were typically 7-8 or
8:15, so you could still drop by teachers classrooms before school started.

------
adam-fn
Lewis Black [1] made this observation (with less diplomatic language) back in
2004:

    
    
        ... I flunked that course. It's not my fault.
        They taught it at 8 o'clock in the morning.
        And there is absolutely nothing that you can
        learn out of one bloodshot eye. After I flunked
        the first two tests, I grabbed the professor
        by the throat and I said, "Why are you
        teaching this **** at this ungodly hour?
        Are you *trying* to keep this stuff a secret?"
    

[1]:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414224/quotes/qt0252382](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414224/quotes/qt0252382)

------
enknamel
Can't biological clocks change? Or are there really populations of people who
have a truly different clock? Or is it a result of their environment?

Personally I've been a night owl and a morning person alternating between the
two throughout my life by choice.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
Sure. Mine, and I think many others, changed precisely when I went through
puberty. Early riser before, late riser after and ever since.

My grades (predictably) crashed early in high school, didn't start to recover
until I discovered coffee. But that couldn't be found in my Utah high school,
of course, so I either had to sneak a cup in or find someplace to "joe up"
during lunch.

Additionally, six years ago I moved into an apartment with a huge east-facing
window. Now I'm a natural morning person again — during the summer months.

------
dzonga
It's all about the industrial complex design, during the industrial
revolution. Kids are supposed to sit in rows, show up to school on time, so
they can fit in easily in the factories when they come of age. Also since
child labor, was abolished, that means parents who work at factories have to
drop their kids of at 0745 School time, so they can catch the buggy / walk to
the factory. Once you take the work element, out you'll notice no kids needs
to spend 8-10 hours at school. But now since our 'work' is no longer
mechanical but more 'conceptual' we've to make school only places to
socialize.

------
ninjakeyboard
Is there some other correlation between owls and being owls that's excluded
from this study? Do they tend to use drugs or alcohol more? Do they tend to
date more? Do they tend to watch more television? Play video games more late
at night?

This is an interesting study that doesn't necessarily suggest later class
times will fix the issue but this could be a bit of a "wicked problem"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem)

------
importantbrian
I am a night owl, and I have found that this has carried over into my adult
life as well. Jobs, where butts in seats at an early hour are required or even
just strongly encouraged, have presented problems for me.

------
Taylor_OD
It's weird how much we pretend like sleep doesnt rule our lives.

~~~
phil248
I've often thought the same thing about using the bathroom.

------
Rotdhizon
It was shown long ago that your brain doesn't fully wake up anyways until
something like 10 AM I believe, if not more like 11 AM or noon. Having
students get to school at 6-8 AM is just wasting resources. As some have
pointed out though, this runs much deeper than people give credit for. The 8-4
schedule of schools isn't due to random choice, it's built around the entire
country from the ground up operating on that type of schedule. People need a
system where kids can get sent off to school in a way that doesn't impact
adults getting to and from work. If schools started even an hour later, I'd
bet at least a few million parents would face hardships in adjusting to get
their kids to school and maintain their current job.

Of course there are more efficient times that we could use for school, but
they would break the fragile system the US already has in place.

Block scheduling has alleviated the knowledge loss to an extent(imo). By
changing from the full 7-8 classes per day schedule to 3-4 classes every day,
students can retain more information because they are in each class longer.
That also means your homework schedule is drastically less stressful.

I don't see any major changes coming to school times. The issue needs to be
discussed, but what really can be done about it?

~~~
jmulho
School could be 8AM to 5PM to coincide with parents work schedule, but don't
start any serious classes until 10AM.

------
nategri
Might go a little ways toward explaining how I got a D the grading period
integrals were introduced in my 7:30am AP Calc class, yet still ended up as a
physics PhD.

~~~
sjg007
I was saved by the AP exams. Basically the teachers would retroactively give
an A if you got a 4 or bette (might of been a 5).

------
superobserver
Night owl here. Didn't need this study to tell me what I already know. That is
all.

------
mschuster91
This is nothing new. The problem is that it won't change - many people, when
asked about education, seem to be of the opinion that if _they_ could endure
the hardships in their youth (getting up way too early, walking sometimes one
to two hours to school, cruel teachers, corporal punishment - yes this is a
thing, even in the USA it's still legal in many places -, "physical education"
aka "survival of the fittest") then their children should suffer the same
fate.

In addition (though this is Germany-specific) the "elite" of society (which
were in the Gymnasium and send their kids there too) will resist fiercely any
movement to a more equal system which does not separate children onto fixed
tracks so that their privileges are not being cut (or watered down, when it
comes to laxer admission criteria for Gymnasien).

Parents, especially concerned and wealthy ones, are a powerful group of
voters. Ideally education should be taken away from political influence
entirely and given into the hands of actual experts...

------
ErikAugust
I was a miserable high school student. Both miserable in feeling, and my
grades were atrocious.

School started just after seven AM, and I never slept more than 4 hours. The
only time the phone line was available for me to use my modem was at night so
I preferred using my computer over getting good grades.

It took me a while to get to university but when I did I ended up an excellent
GPA. Classes never started before 9, go figure.

------
applecrazy
I’m a Bay Area high school student and schools in this area have tried
adopting these late start times. However, they were faced with intense
community resistance, with parents pushing against that idea as it interferes
with extracurriculars and childcare.

I recently watched a PBS Frontline documentary back from 2002 that discussed
this issue, and even then parents were extremely resistant to change.

------
PeterStuer
I used to be a typical 'owl' as a student and when I worked in research. My
peak performance hour were from 10pm to 4am. When you get kids and an
'industry' job, that isn't an option. It took me about 7 years to switch. Now
I'm a true morning person. Best hours are now from 6am to 2pm. Afternoons are
horror though. I can barely stay awake 2pm - 5pm.

~~~
jzymbaluk
How did you make that switch? I'm having a lot of trouble in the transition
from night owl to early bird and I could use any advice I can get

~~~
barry-cotter
It happens naturally as you get older. There’s nothing you can do to hasten
the transition. Regular exercise helps with sleep but if you stop the effects
on sleep end.

------
VLM
Do we like to tell ourselves the purpose of school is academics or athletics?

If athletics, school must start as early as possible, so "away" outdoor games
can be held outside in sunlight and "away" teams can get home at a reasonable
hour.

If academics, school should start as late as possible, so students (and
instructors!) can do class prep immediately before class and/or sleep in.

Its interesting that the only acceptable model of alternative education is
essentially "pick your major in high school" such that there are art high
schools or music high schools or aviation high schools, etc. And of course
religious schools that have been around for centuries. However there are no
business model schools based on priority, like a school with no athletics
program that focuses on academics.

The real purpose of school is lowering unemployment by increasing babysitting
years, along with raising the bar as a filter to reduce the number of
"successful" kids needing jobs. Certainly we have far too much academics for
our economy and culture to hold them.

~~~
adamnemecek
How could athletics be the purpose of school?

~~~
sambull
Social context? During a war, there might be more focus on producing fit
troops. Or a even a primary focus on providing resources to the military.

~~~
adamnemecek
I really dont want to be a fodder for the military? Would it not make more
sense to concentrate on problems that are now as opposed to possibles? The
current place of athletics in the school system really fucks things up.

------
tjr225
I dropped out of high school partly because waking up was such a painful
experience for me. Of course as an adult I wake up at 5:45-6AM.

~~~
projektir
Waking up as an adult is so much easier.

I recall my high school days were absolutely awful, I could never wake up
properly in the morning and I zombie-made coffee and then zombie-walked to
school.

Right now, if I need to wake up at 6 AM, for one, it's much easier to just
shift my schedule, and for another, even if I don't get as many hours of sleep
it just doesn't hit me all that hard.

And I think people judge teenagers off of the adult scale, which is completely
off...

------
iMuzz
I firmly believe that one of the reasons I personally did poorly in high
school was because I had to be in my first class by 7:30 A.M.

------
brightball
I can definitely confirm this from my time in college at least. I had an 8am,
4 day a week calculus class my first semester that I was only taking to get an
easy A since I already had the AP credit. Ended up dropping it and my grades
in every other class improved.

My best semester by far was one in which I somehow managed to schedule all of
my classes after 2pm until about 9pm.

------
maaaats
That's what I loved most about my college/university: no mandatory attendance.
Could wake up when I wanted, and start studying at a more suitable time.

I also have a hard time following multiple lectures during the same day. So a
nice additional effect was that I, instead of attending, would study more
efficiently in my own way.

------
robertwiblin
Am I reading this figure correctly, or does every group do better with evening
classes?

[http://news.berkeley.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/SJL-2-40...](http://news.berkeley.edu/wp-
content/uploads/2018/03/SJL-2-400.jpg)

------
Improvotter
As a college student that doesn't get to pick what times he can take classes,
let alone pick any of them myself. I am dumbfounded by the amount of people
who think that an 8AM class is out of the ordinary. I've got 4 out of 5 days
where I have classes at 8:15AM.

------
pithymaxim
Similar argument in this paper but with better methods and data--2 million LA
middle schoolers!
[http://home.uchicago.edu/~npope/morning_afternoon.pdf](http://home.uchicago.edu/~npope/morning_afternoon.pdf)

------
WhompingWindows
Great study, really interesting. I'd like to see a follow-up study with the
following design:

Find high schools with rotating class schedules (i.e. math is at a different
time of day each day for 6 days, then loop that), then find high schools with
fixed schedules (i.e. math is always first period for some students). Then,
compare performance of night owls in the two different schools. Theoretically,
if the authors' study is generalizable from college to HS, then the night-owls
should do significantly worse in the early AM classes in the non-rotating
school, and significantly better in the early PM classes in the non-rotating
school.

------
merinowool
I was never able to hold a 9-5 job. I could manage a year, but during that
year I was just physically and mentally exhausted. I just cannot wake up
earlier than 8 and at the same time I am unable to get to sleep earlier than
10. In the morning I was asleep and feeling productive in the evening when I
was commuting back home. My performance was really bad and employer didn't
think I am a good worker. My only choice was to go freelancing where I can
adapt work to my waking hours. I think it should be illegal for employers to
force 9-5.

------
ada1981
"High-school sports represent one of the most consistent roadblocks barring
change (of school start times)."

[https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/how-
sc...](https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/04/how-school-start-
times-affect-high-school-athletics/522537/)

------
sheana_ahlqvist
It's frustrating that we let antiquated systems remain in the face of new data
indicating that the system could be improved. I don't think it's ANYONE's goal
to let some people get worse grades just because. Generally, the goal of
schooling is to get everyone to a better, more knowledgeable version of
themselves in preparation for the world.

~~~
projektir
> Generally, the goal of schooling is to get everyone to a better, more
> knowledgeable version of themselves in preparation for the world.

Call me cynical, but I seriously doubt that this is the actual goal of
schooling for pretty much anyone. The real purpose of school seems to be a) to
get rid of kids so they're not muddling about in early hours; b) to generate a
hierarchy of kids so we can figure out who to put in the lower castes.

------
bootcat
Yoga and Ancient Indian technology has already talked about BrahmaMuhurtha,
which is the apt time for meditation and thus time to practice any skill
required. BrahmaMuhurtha
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmamuhurtha)).

------
cbhl
> _Overall, men stay up later than women_

I would be careful about concluding that women and men have different
biological clocks from this observation. I feel like society strongly
discourages women from staying up late (constantly telling them it is unsafe /
will make them ugly / suggests they are sexually active).

------
Symmetry
Unlike those of us in STEM most high schoolers or college students don't end
up using anything they fail to remember because they're only getting 6 hour of
sleep a night. I'm a lot more concerned with the link between poor sleep and
poor mental health.

------
ThomPete
For what it's worth my son is at one of the best performing schools in NY
State (Top 3%).

They meet at 7.45AM every morning and get most of the learning done while they
are the freshest.

I am not convinced this study actually proves that but need to dig deeper in.

~~~
digitaltrees
I am at my freshest from 11pm to 2am. If I try to be productive at 8am it is a
waste.

~~~
ThomPete
I am fresh early. The point is that this is on a school level not individual
so I think the performance of my sons school is pretty important example of
the the report probably not being very conclusive.

------
tariqp
Question here is, is it really that hard to go from night owl to morning lark
or daytime finch...? I have done this myself just by adjusting my sleep
schedule.

------
aj7
Perhaps in classes where the grade is determined by parroting back what the
professor says in class. It’s when (and how much) you study, not when class is
that counts. Class just tells you what’s important to study.

~~~
merinowool
If your day is ruined because you had to wake up at incompatible hour, you
won't be able to learn much during that day, regardless if it is in class or
in the evening at home as you'll be feeling fatigued.

~~~
aj7
Good point.

------
WhompingWindows
Here's the link to the actual source article:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23044-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23044-8)

------
macawfish
To bad there are authority figures out here who are downright sadistic about
this.

------
Zorlag
This discussion is so old. Everybody knows that class schedules begin too
early for kids. It's the teachers that keep later schedules from happening
because they want their free time afterwards.

------
2sk21
I've been getting up at 4am since I started high school and am at my peak
alertness 5am - 7am. Based on the comments I'm seeing here, would that suggest
that I am in a small minority among tech workers?

------
musgrove
Seems like work schedules would parallel this finding.

------
noobermin
As cute as this is _why is this published in sci rep!?_ is this that
revolutionary?

If there were more reasons for me to lose even more faith in academia.

------
mi100hael
At the same time, the point of college for most kids is to prepare them for a
white collar job. If there's a huge client meeting at 10am and there's still 3
hours of preparation to do before they arrive, no one's going to be very
sympathetic to the excuse that you have "social jet lag." Expecting college
adults to get out of bed before 10 is hardly a substantial burden.

~~~
InitialLastName
If it's Monday afternoon, you know you have a big meeting at 10AM Tuesday, you
know you have 3 hours more of prep to do, and you know you're ineffective in
the early morning, why not work later to cover that prep? This sounds like a
procrastination problem more than a night owl problem.

------
troupe
I suspect that many of these issues would go away if artificial lighting
wasn't involved.

------
Dowwie
My biological clock ate my homework

~~~
digitaltrees
More like our stupid adherence to a common set schedule is harming a large
portion of people but we still insist in all having only one set schedule.

------
noobly
>there isn’t a one-time-fits-all solution for education.

Recorded online lectures beg to differ!

------
campuscodi
That's funny. I remember doing just fine in school at 8 am.

------
lowbloodsugar
The only reason I have a first is because I didn't go to class.

------
Spooky23
Is it biological clock or bedtime?

My son goes to bed at 8:30. He wakes up at 6. That wasn’t a biological
imperative — we made him go to sleep early.

------
esfandia
This is a problem for profs too!

------
daddosi
Interesting stuff but night owls could also go to bed early, drink a bit less
etc

I mean, bioritm it isnt the only datapoint.

~~~
hodl
If they could simply sleep earlier they wouldn't be night owls. Not sure how
drink is coreleated with night owlism.

~~~
daddosi
My hypothesis is that partying hard might also negatively influence school
results.

------
mcbreezy
I always struggled in school, waking up, even as an adult, HAVING to wake up
at a particular time, five times a week just made me feel terrible.

------
matte_black
This just sounds like more excuses. I know plenty of people who got to class
at 7:30 AM on the dot and excelled with straight A's. I never had a problem.
So what's different?

~~~
sjg007
Some kids can do it. Some go to sleep earlier and wake up refreshed. Some
don't, it's biological that's all. I wish I'd gone to bed earlier in high
school but I was wired to stay up late. Same in college. It wasn't until I
started working that I got to bed earlier. And after having kids man I can go
to bed at 8pm easy.

~~~
matte_black
Then it’s better to “rewire” these kids before they get to the real world and
have to wake up early, or else they will be poor performers.

~~~
merinowool
It is not possible.

~~~
matte_black
Then their fate is sealed.

------
dna_nerd
Wow, our society loves to blame our problems on other people and "the system".

"Social jetlag correlates to GPA". Hmm, maybe the students who prioritized
school and didn't go out drinking every night ended up doing better.

You don't "deserve" good grades just because you're smart. Work hard for it.
Get up early. Go to bed. Prioritize. Give something up. That's how life works.

~~~
digitaltrees
Maybe if we recognize biological differences and structure society to align
with that diversity we will get better performance out of everyone. I think
it’s kind of insane that we all cram onto roads at the exact time so we can
get to the office at the exact time. Why not have staggered schedules;
especially if that means better performance from more people.

~~~
dna_nerd
I totally agree with what you said. We need more personalized education
systems. But this article is a red herring. If you actually read the data and
figures from the article, the conclusions have been twisted to create
clickbait. In particular, the article talks about persistent INSTABILITY of
sleeping schedules. "We quantified SJL as the difference between the average
phase of activity on class days and non-class days." This has nothing to do
with the disadvantage of night owls to non-night owls, but rather talks about
the disadvantage of folks who oscillate their sleeping schedule from day to
day. It doesn't matter if you're a night owl or not, that's going to kill
anyone's productivity. The audience read what they wanted to read, and
interpreted this as "night owls vs. early birds".

here's the original article for reference:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23044-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-23044-8)

~~~
digitaltrees
Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I think people experience sleep pattern
oscillation when they are trying to live on the wrong schedule. Night owls end
up with a non-24hr sleep pattern when they try to live off cycle for too long.
I experienced that myself when I was a lawyer in New York.

