
Later school start times are associated with more sleep and better performance - simonebrunozzi
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/12/eaau6200
======
tartoran
As a kid I remember waking up at 7 and heading to class which was starting at
8. I was half awake up until about 10 in the morning, I don't know how I was
making it to school in one piece (school was within walking distance and was
about 15 minutes from home). Also, in the winter at 7 it was still dark and
cold I still remember the a magnetic force I had to fight away from the warm
cozy bed. That was me at the time. A group of kids didn't seem to have this
problem at all, so this early sleepiness phenomena is not universal.
Throughout my life I was also a night owl, my most productive and creative
moments took place after dark. Recently, however, something changed. I feel
much more comfortable in the morning, I even enjoy the quiet hours early in
the morning until things start to hustle and bustle and enjoy and am able to
go to sleep earlier.

So to conclude, this is not a universal thing and this is the problem, we are
all different so a one sized solution does both good and bad.

~~~
pgt
How has your diet changed over the years? I'd be curious to know if different
foods and eating schedules might affect circadian rhythm.

~~~
tartoran
My partner is a vegetarian and a good cook so we don't serve meat at home.
Consequentially I eat less meat now; I eat less meat also because the meat
quality isn't very good unless you go to a very good restaurant and that is
not 100% guaranteed either. I've got a friend who ran a restaurant business
and was shocked to learn the price of the chicken was suspiciously low. After
doing some digging I realized what most meat we eat, how it is produced, what
animals are fed and all the antibiotics they're fed are quite bad for us. I
frankly lost my appetite for meat. I started eating more fish instead, not a
very good decision either but nonetheless better imho. I still eat meat but
not too often, not sure if I'll ever become a fulltime vegetarian.

Second, I stopped drinking alcohol excessively and completely stopped eating
sugary drinks or sugary things in general. Rarely whenever I eat something
sugary, because I'm no longer used to it, it makes me very nauseous.

~~~
crooked-v
> and all the antibiotics they're fed

To nitpick on this one, the societal problem isn't the antibiotics, per se...
it's that antibiotics get used to paper over an incredibly unhealthy and
unclean environment, and that in doing they so encourage the rise of
'superbug' antibiotic-resistant diseases.

~~~
tartoran
But also the mass over consumption of meat isn't very normal either, plenty of
countries are vegetarian, take for example parts of India for generations; to
me at least, the current practices in our modern meat factories kill my
appetite. I do still consume some animal products but always try to get those
from farmers, and for one it's noticeably tasting better.

------
germinalphrase
I teach at the high school level. Everyone knows this is true and some
districts in my area are changing to a later start time; however, there is a
great deal of institutional momentum working against the change. Primarily due
to primary school start times, bussing schedules, and athletics.

~~~
datashow
> Primarily due to primary school start times, bussing schedules, and
> athletics.

Not only that. Starting late also creates a problem for parents.

Parents need to go to work. If kids take bus, kids usually need to board on
the school bus before parents leave home. If parents drive kids to school,
then the late school start time will become totally unacceptable for many
parents because of the conflict with their work start time.

~~~
commandlinefan
Yeah, it’s a nice thought, but completely unworkable. I live 0.99 miles
(seriously!) from my kids’ school. The minimum bus distance in 1 mile - so
they won’t send buses to pick up my kids. That means that they have to walk
0.99 miles, sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the cold, across three fairly
busy intersections, or I have to drive them. My commute is about an hour long
(longer because I’m driving at the worst possible time), so I’m getting into
work later than everybody else as it is.

~~~
DiffEq
Is there a reason they can not walk to school? It doesn't really take long to
walk a mile and it is very good for them mentally to get a walk in before and
after school anyway. There may be times when inclement weather might make it a
little miserable but proper clothes can address that in all but the most
extreme cases. I grew up in MT and had to walk about a mile to my elementary
school and almost a mile to my High School bus stop. I enjoyed those walks and
the time to think it afforded.

~~~
LaLaLand122
In my country there is no really the concept of the "school bus". Google Maps
says I walked exactly 1.0 miles... climbing a mountain, because my school was
in the freaking top of a mountain. In some parts climbs were so steep that
nowadays there are escalators on the streets.

I did that from 4 to 18 yo. It did never bother me, sometimes I literally did
the whole way back running non-stop for fun, it was kind of like a roller
coaster. But:

\- Weather was generally good

\- I obviously didn't walk alone when I was 4 yo.

We don't even know the age of those kids. Maybe they will walk to school
alone... when they are older.

~~~
bullfightonmars
How many 30-40 mph roads/intersections were between your house and school?

Unfortunately this is the kind of thing that prevents many kids from walking
to school in the US, even in cities, there are often few safe walking routes,
incomplete sidewalks, poorly designed intersections across wide, fast moving
roads.

~~~
dragonsky67
Sounds like you have bigger problems than school starting times. I'd be
working on the local municipaility to get the facilities in place. Being able
to walk anywhere you need to go should be one of those human rights. It's
basic to our physology.

------
rconti
This could have made my formative years immeasurably better. I woke up between
5:30-6am every school day between grades 6-12. I had an incredibly hard time
focusing on and starting my homework, and was often up past midnight. It was a
vicious cycle of not sleeping and depression and anxiety. Typical school hours
are insane for the kids who need sleep the most. Even being chronically
underslept, I'd still easily stay up until 1 or 2am on weekends which I'm "too
old for" (read: my circadian rhythms have changed as I reached adulthood). As
a kid, I was frequently sleeping till 11am or noon on weekend days to try to
make up for it. It's just not healthy -- any of it.

~~~
thewebcount
Yeah, same here. I remember getting home from high school around 2:00 (even
earlier if I didn't have a class for the 6th hour). I would just collapse on
the couch and sleep for an hour. Then, of course, I'd have trouble falling
asleep at night, leading to it being hard to get up. Lather, rinse, repeat.

------
blakesterz
Reminds me of when Boston tried to make some changes to start times for a
number of reasons:

What happened when Boston Public Schools tried for equity with an algorithm

[https://apps.bostonglobe.com/ideas/graphics/2018/09/equity-m...](https://apps.bostonglobe.com/ideas/graphics/2018/09/equity-
machine/)

"But no one anticipated the crush of opposition that followed. Angry parents
signed an online petition and filled the school committee chamber, turning the
plan into one of the biggest crises of Mayor Marty Walsh’s tenure. The city
summarily dropped it. The failure would eventually play a role in the
superintendent’s resignation."

~~~
Chathamization
The Boston plan was to move a lot of younger students to earlier start times.
People seem to just shrug this part off for some reason. People talk about the
benefit of later start times for teenagers, but the negative impact that
earlier start times would have on younger students gets ignored.

~~~
karatestomp
The younger kids _should_ be going earlier, at least around here. They start
after 9:00! They've had two of their most alert hours of the day already by
then.

This is so the older kids can start earlier. There are only so many buses.
Adjust one to start later and the other starts earlier, and vice-versa. The
high schools should have the 9:00 start and the elementaries should get their
7:40 start or whatever it is, assuming the whole window can't be adjusted.

Nb. I've had it explained to my by people in education that early starts in
high school are insisted upon by the sports folks, so they can have longer
afternoon practices with sunlight in the Winter, and that there's no hope of
switching start times up on a large scale without attacking that constituency
and winning, which is... probably not gonna happen.

~~~
Chathamization
The Boston plan was to start elementary school kids at 7:15, which is why
parents were complaining about forcing young kids out of bed at 5:30-6:00 am.
Not an unreasonable criticism, I think (there were also complaints from
working families that they'd have to pay more for after school childcare).

But you're right that part of the problem was that there was no interest in
spending more on transportation (or in generally improving the poor state of
transportation). I'd say it's also worth questioning why we insist that all
students need to go to school at the same time. The education system seems
needlessly rigid (though I suppose imposing a certain amount of conformity is
one of its goals).

~~~
karatestomp
Oof, OK, yeah, _no one_ should have to be somewhere at 7:15AM. 7:30's pushing
it.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Interesting study, but there are some potential issues.

One is that it is small, about 100 students.

The other is that the demographics of the students at the second school shift
between the 2 years. This may confound the study due to cultural differences.
For example, in my limited experience, it seems that white parents are more
strict about bedtime than Asian parents, and if that is the case, more sleep
may simply be a result that the second group had parents who pushed stricter
bedtimes.

From:
[https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/suppl/2018/...](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/suppl/2018/12/10/4.12.eaau6200.DC1/aau6200_SM.pdf)

School RHS FHS

Year 2016 2017 2016 2017

Students 51 41 41 41

% Female 53 49* 56 58

% White 76 75 2 19

% Asian 10 5 54 46

% Hispanic 6 5 7 7

% African American 8 5 32 22

% Unknown/other 0 10 10 10

Age (mean ±SEM) 16.08 ± 0.05 16.27 ± 0.08 16.13 ± 0.05 16.13 ± 0.06

I would take these results with a grain of salt.

~~~
boomboomsubban
>The other is that the demographics of the students at the second school shift
between the 2 years

Not really. The first class had 21 Asian students, the second had 20. The
small sample limits the use of this study, but it's not the only one out
there.

------
socalnate1
I've posted this before, but it's relevant again:

My high school started at 7am. I also took the bus; which picked up around
6:15am; so I usually woke up around 5:45am during the week. I would often nod
off during my first or second period; and routinely took 2-3 hour naps when I
got home from school; which screwed up my ability to fall asleep early at
night or get much homework done. I sometimes wonder what my academics would
have been like if I was actually awake during those first two periods.

(This was in the 90's)

~~~
thebiss
Same schedule still exists here, and we're on the East Coast.

------
petercooper
I think it applies to adults just as much, except most adults "get used to
it". So at my company we've always started the day at 10am and everyone cites
it as one of the things they like the most about working here (we then end at
5.30pm – which also works out well as all the 5pm rush traffic has cleared up
by then).

------
finaliteration
My kid starts elementary school at 9am with one late start day a week. We’re
able to spend more time with her in the evening because we don’t feel rushed
to get her to bed so she gets enough sleep. I also find she doesn’t seem
totally exhausted when she gets up in the morning.

That being said, my spouse and I are very fortunate in that we have flexible
jobs with part-time remote work ability. I can’t imagine how a single parent
working two jobs would deal with the schedule change and late start day.

------
kjakm
Reading this thread it appears high school in the US starts a lot earlier than
in the UK.

Even the article states: "We show that a delay in the high school start times
from 7:50 to 8:45 a.m. had several measurable benefits for students".

In my experience at least, high school in the UK doesn't start earlier than
9am and usually starts at 9:30am. End of day is about 3:30/4:00pm.

What's the reasoning for starting to early in the US?

~~~
netcraft
I'm not sure if its universal, but in my district the biggest reason - or at
least the most often stated challenge to changing the times for high school -
is that we have limited buses that service the high school first, then middle
and then elementary.

~~~
joezydeco
My district uses that excuse, and the logical answer is to swap elementary and
high school start times.

In my district the HS start is 7:20, middle at 8:05, elementary at 9:00.

Any parent will tell you 9:00 is a crazy late time of the morning for a
kindergartener.

~~~
jessaustin
I would wonder whether anyone who willingly created such a backwards schedule
could be fit to run a school, except I've met the people who run the public
schools in this country...

~~~
germinalphrase
Advocate. Public institutions are strong when locals are engaged in their
success.

------
paulcarroty
My head just can't operate on max level at morning for years. "go to bed
earlier" isn't helpful here, working at nights too. Tried several times to
change my owl-type nature, but without any viable success. The fix is easy:
pretend to be productive, and be a rock star at the end of day.

------
jimbob45
I vehemently disagree with this. The problem is that there are only 24 hours
in the day. That's just not enough time to go to school, sleep 9.25 hours
(recommended for teens, as I've been told), and still participate in sports,
do homework, and (god forbid) play video games.

This would only move the problem later, not solve it. Even worse, parents
would have to move around their own work schedules to get kids to school on
time. The real problem, in my opinion, is the massive unchecked amounts of
homework that get piled on students every year. Each teacher thinks that their
amount of homework is reasonable but it only takes one bad teacher to cripple
a kid's schedule. Writing a 5-6 page paper in middle school never taught
anyone anything, but it did take away time that could have been used
constructively.

~~~
James_Henry
What is the "this" that you don't agree with? The theorized causality? It's
not a question of whether the kids in the Seattle study slept more or not.
They did sleep more. The question is why, and I think most people agree that
it is clearly because of the later school start time.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
I got pretty mediocre grades in middle school. I always stayed up way too late
on my computer. However I noticed looking back there was one exceptional
quarter: when my first class was PE.

I think running a mile at the start of every day did something to my brain. I
advocate PE as the first class for all students.

------
BitwiseFool
And yet, school start times won't change.

~~~
roguecoder
It's a matter of incomplete metrics. What impact do later school start times
have on parents? How about parents' workplaces, especially for shift work?
Regulatory capture means convenience for businesses is likely to trump
children's health and performance.

~~~
ixwt
I feel it's also a bit about perspective. Is school for learning, or is it a
state sponsored day care with a guise of learning? Especially in the early
years.

~~~
germinalphrase
We ask schools to be all things for all people, so it is, of course, both and
neither.

------
brightball
When I was in college, the best semester I had was one in which my first
classes every day were at 2pm.

I’m pretty sure that’s the best I’ve felt in my entire life.

------
James_Henry
I would like to point out that this is part of the reason that daylight
savings time (not just the clock changes associated with daylight savings
time) is so dangerous. This is one thing that a state could do today to
implement a change for the better: outlaw daylight savings time, giving
teenagers and children (not to mention adults) another hour to sleep for much
of the year.

~~~
umvi
Would they use it to sleep? Or would they squander it on an extra hour of
entertainment?

~~~
James_Henry
Research suggests that people use it to sleep. It's even been found that
people on the eastern edge of a time zone sleep more than on the western edge
because the sun goes down "sooner" for them.

------
deepsun
A big problem here in US is kids logistics -- parents spend way too much time
getting their kids somewhere and back.

In Eastern Europe I remember parents just told me to not forget about pool
after school, so I get on the bus and went 6 stops to the pool after school
myself.

That only worked since age of 8 for me, of course, before that logistics was
probably a problem for my parents as well.

------
Nasrudith
Ah the joys of societal chauvinism, where your opinion is a priori wrong
because of what you are regardless of evidence or any massive benefits they
could possibly get. And the kicker is if you ever point out that you are
maltreated they will deny it while maltreating you for daring to point out
their casual cruelty.

------
im3w1l
I'm curious if it the benefit comes from starting late compared to your
environment or starting late in an absolute sense. The whole of China has just
one timezone, so it could be a good place to look at.

------
swiley
I was homeschooled so I missed out on a lot of public school stuff, but
talking to adults my age and younger I’m continually shocked and horrified
about what we’re putting kids through; it’s unacceptable.

------
BlameKaneda
I used to wake up around 6:30-40 for a 7:55 start time. I didn't officially
"wake up" until after 9:30 or so.

The high school juniors had statewide exams every year so the rest of the high
schoolers got to go in after 9/9:30. I woke up much more well-rested and oddly
enough, I felt happier. I really wished that a later start time was the norm.

I doubt it'll be, since one of the reasons why schools start early is due to
parents' schedules, but who knows.

~~~
hinkley
Said more times than I care to count: "My brain is not fully on until 10:00
am. Do you want me writing 1 hour of code in that state, or 2 hours of code?"

(A couple jobs, showing up regularly at 9:45 was tolerated, if not exactly
appreciated. Those were glorious times.)

------
epicgiga
They don't care though. School was never about learning, but discipline.
Through that lens, the fact its uncomfortable without purpose is by design.

------
brlewis
A high school educator once told me that the impetus for the early schedule
was businesses who wanted teens to be able to work for them in the afternoon.

------
zacharycohn
My high school started at 7:17am and I would have given _anything_ for a 9am,
or even an 8am, start time.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
7:17am? Really? Not 7:15am, not 7:30am?

~~~
pirocks
Not op but my middle school had a lot of odd schedule times to avoid students
memorizing when a class ended. It didn't really work. Some teachers couldn't
figure out when classes ended though.

~~~
dntbnmpls
> Not op but my middle school had a lot of odd schedule times to avoid
> students memorizing when a class ended.

But wouldn't that also mean a lot of students didn't know when classes
started?

I've never heard of school starting at 7:17. It was always a round number like
7 am or quarter intervals ( 7:15, 7:30, 7:45 ).

I don't think I've ever had anything like that for work meetings or
interviews. If someone scheduled a meeting for 7:37, he'd get laughed at.

~~~
mattkrause
You (hopefully!) don't have six or seven 45 minute back-to-back meetings, with
a few minutes of designated "passing time" to travel between them.

With those constraints, it's hard to develop a schedule that sticks to round
numbers. This is especially true if you want to minimize downtime: your
officemates can be trusted to productively--or at least quietly--occupy a few
minutes of downtime, but many schools don't seem to think kids can.

My high school, for example, ended at 2:18pm (I can still picture the clock),
but I think this was a consequence of starting at 7:30am.

~~~
dntbnmpls
> My high school, for example, ended at 2:18pm (I can still picture the
> clock), but I think this was a consequence of starting at 7:30am.

That's interesting. If your classes are 45 mins or an hour long and you get 5,
10 or 15 minutes to get to your next class, how do you end up with 2:18pm?
Also, even if it was 2:18pm, I'd imagine most schools would just round that up
to 2:20pm or let you leave a few minutes earlier at 2:15pm.

I don't ever recall any of my classes ending in a none-round number ( time
that didn't end with a 0 or a 5 ). I don't recall any school letting me out at
a none-round number.

As a matter of fact, I don't recall any stores, government offices or tv shows
that didn't open or start at a "round number".

And every meeting I've had ( even multiple meetings in a day ) always was at a
"round number". I can't imagine saying lets start the meeting at 2:17pm. Most
of the time we'd bump it to 2:30pm. And if we were constrained for time to
2:20pm.

~~~
mattkrause
I can't remember how long we got between classes (it was /many/ years ago),
but it was far, far less than fifteen minutes, and maybe not even five. You
had to hustle between distant classes.

Just for kicks, I searched for "high school bell schedule" and about half seem
to run on round numbers and half seem to be totally bizarre. For example:

\- Starts at 7:45 but heads off the rails quickly:
[https://lchs.lpsd.ca/about/bell-schedule](https://lchs.lpsd.ca/about/bell-
schedule) \- 5/15/50 minute blocks:
[http://beaconsfield.lbpsb.qc.ca/Parents/Bell-
Schedule](http://beaconsfield.lbpsb.qc.ca/Parents/Bell-Schedule)

------
luord
As someone who attended high school during the afternoon, I am not shocked.

Having to attend six am classes in college is the sole reason I didn't
graduate cum laude. I had the gpa for it, but I had to repeat a subject just
because it was that early and I'd rather miss the classes.

------
lbrdn
Why We Sleep is a good book on this topic and addresses many of the comments
and concerns in this thread.

~~~
James_Henry
It's an entertaining book, and I like some of the things that it is trying to
do, but it has some issues that it really shouldn't have.

[https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/](https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/)

~~~
simonebrunozzi
"Matthew Walker's "Why We Sleep" Is Riddled with Scientific and Factual
Errors"

Thanks for posting this (upvoted you).

I was just about to order that book, but I usually research critiques of the
book before buying it. I found yours here just because I'm the original poster
(OP) and was reading through comments.

I am not going to buy the book, at least for now. Thanks again.

Edit: There's also a HN thread about the blog post that you shared [0].

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21546850)

------
onesmallcoin
When I was a teenager we had some natural disaster and the highschools had to
share sites, the way they did it was we did school 12-6. We would eat dinner
togeather after school I think we enjoyed it despite not being the norm

------
mensetmanusman
It’s an interesting thought experiment, what is harder for society?

-Going to bed earlier? -Rescheduling everything to be later?

As we know from many parts of Latin America and other equatorial countries,
the eventual result is dinner at 9 or 10 pm.

I have no idea what is better...

------
dqpb
There are so many ways in which school is not optimized for learning.

------
cryptozeus
I have always had noon school..so the timings were from 10-5 pm. Many of my
friends had morning school from 7-3 pm. I do not see any difference in sleep
or performance due to this.

------
ch
And yet work start times won't adjust.

------
bilbyx
How about just get kids to go to bed earlier?

~~~
lukifer
There's evidence that some people are biologically pre-disposed towards waking
up late, aka "owls" [0]. During adolescence, the tendency for delayed sleep
phase rises to 7-16% [1], though it drops down to 1 in 600 for adults.

While never formally diagnosed with DSPD, I've struggled with chronotype/sleep
issues my whole life, and it made public education a nightmare. I'm often
still in a high-energy mental state at 2am (possibly heritable, my mother is
the same way). Putting my head on the pillow is a futile gesture; I'll get
tired faster if I get up and do something. I've found mitigation strategies
(limiting blue light is the biggest), but it doesn't change that my energy
starts low in the morning and steadily accumulates, while "larks" are the
exact opposite.

I've only managed to function in my career due to much of the tech industry
being highly flexible on scheduling; probably 30-40% of my output happens
after 10pm, on average.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder)

------
bryanrasmussen
I suppose later school start times would also be associated with
problematically late work start times, as such the school start times must be
structured to give the optimal work start time under capitalism - and probably
under most systems that require lots of people to work at specific times of
the day.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I guess I'm in a bad mood today (splitting headache 5th day in a row), but why
did the above get downvoted? It isn't apparent and I was wrong to claim it
was? I'm wrong that later work times would be problematic for most employers?
Is it the use of the word capitalism (I didn't capitalize it? It's a noun so I
shouldn't) which is a reasonable description of the system that most of the
Western world runs under, and really most of the world. Is it that I then went
on to qualify my use of capitalism by saying lots of systems would also work
the same way, is it that my qualification was sort of imprecise?

What possible reason, under the Hacker News guidelines would cause the above
comment to be downvoted?

------
pneill
I never buy these stories. Why is it that an 18 year old high school student
has trouble getting up and off to school by 7:30/ 8:00 am, but an 18 year old
marine has no problems getting up at 4:30 am?

~~~
lukifer
Self-selection? I imagine those are biologically wired for a late-night
chronotype either don't join the Marines, or wash out relatively quickly.

~~~
umvi
Or maybe the more structured environment of the military enforces early
bedtimes vs. lax family life where parents zone out on smartphones while their
kids are left to their own devices (pun intended) to enforce their own
bedtimes.

~~~
pneill
Correct. It’s all discipline. When the school has late start, do the kids go
to bed at the same time and get more rest? Nope. They stay up later.

~~~
perl4ever
You sign up voluntarily for the military in my lifetime. No so much for
school. People tend to submit more readily when they aren't being compelled to
do something. Even if they don't end up liking it, there's a tendency to act
in accordance with a choice you made.

------
hpoe
This is well known, but it also has impact on lots of other interconnected
issues. Such as parents work schedules, that effect stability, that effect
students learning as well. It will also impact school budgets, which then
influences what kind of supplies and teachers a school gets, which also has a
big impact on learning, and on and on and on.

Not saying we shouldn't do it, I just feel like sometimes we see an idea that
would help things and then jump to, obviously there is no reason not to do it,
it must be evil <insert bogyman here government, corporations, lazy teachers
unions, Illuminati, leprechauns>. We must remember we live in an incredibly
complex system and pushing for changes in just one part will have
ramifications that must be considered downstream.

~~~
James_Henry
Are you arguing that the ramifications for society of correcting for this
issue are net negative? I would guess the opposite and think that we are going
to see ever more schools pushing back start times in the next several decades.
We are already seeing some acting.

------
acidtoyman
Oh, Jesus Christ—so let's force kids into another Procrustes Bed, eh? Let a
different tail wag the dog?

There are those of us who naturally wake up early (I'm one, and I know plenty
of others), and there are those of use who naturally sleep until noon.

Obviously, later start times would be awesome for late sleepers. They would
also suck hard for those of us who have already been up for hours before
school even starts.

A German friend of mine told me her school started at 07:00 every day and
finished at noon. She said she preferred it that way, and so would I have.

What's wrong with having staggered start times for high schools? Some students
could choose to start at 07:00, others as late as the afternoon. We'd fit more
classes into the same school buildings, making potentially more efficient use
of public resources.

~~~
cbsks
> They would also suck hard for those of us who have already been up for hours
> before school even starts.

Why? If you are up early, you can use the morning to do whatever you want to.

~~~
acidtoyman
You're not a morning person, are you?

I sure wouldn't have been getting a part-time job or been out playing with my
friends at 06:00 in the morning, so, no, I couldn't "use the morning to do
whatever [I] want to".

Especially if "what I want to do" is get my classes done and out of the way.

~~~
cbsks
I am not a morning person, but my 2 year old is :). We have a few hours free
every morning before she has to be at preschool. We read books, go for bike
rides, go to the park, make large breakfasts, etc.

There’s lots to do in the morning. The only disadvantages are that it is
sometimes cold, and nobody else is up yet.

~~~
acidtoyman
"The only disadvantages" you say, when I've already given you a few. There are
fewer options in the mornings—and one of those fewer options is "getting
classes over with" (to bring this back on topic), with people suggesting
pushing classes back even later.

------
jxy
This is ridiculous. What has anything of these to do with time? If you live at
the east coast of the US, just set your time to GMT, and you can enjoy waking
up at noon.

We need a culture of encouraging school student to go to sleep early and wake
up early, and not overtaxing their health by staying up late and wasting time.

~~~
crooked-v
Teenagers are biologically driven to stay up late and wake up late, as shown
in studies of sleep schedules in laboratory conditions:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2820578/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2820578/)

> Adolescents continue to show a delayed circadian (or internal clock) phase
> as indicated by daily endocrine rhythms even after several weeks of
> regulated schedules that allow for sufficient sleep. This delay is
> maintained under controlled laboratory conditions in which there is limited
> possibility for social influence.

~~~
acidtoyman
Plenty of adolescents are not "biologically driven to stay up late and wake up
late". I woke up at 05:00 or so nearly every morning when I was a teenager—per
my internal clock—and I'm not alone.

