Let's talk about teens and unhealthy school settings: sleep edition
In teens brains melatonin doesn't set in till 11 pm. And that's an average, a baseline. If you factor in different habits and deficienys some teens melatonin could kick in even later.
If a teen falls asleep at exactly eleven, and wakes up at six, that's 7 hours of sleep.
For a teen to develop healthy they need between 9 to 9.5 hours of sleep.
We already have two hours less of sleep, so let's throw in some hypotheticals.
Now lots of sports kids do extreme sports practice, early teens is when they switch to competitive teams and practice like quadruples. If school ends at 3:00, and a kid gets home at 3:30-ish they have seven and a half hours before that 11 O' clock melatonin. Homework averages from 3 hours to 6 hours so let's say they do homework for a total of 4.5 hours. They now have 3 hours to complete a two hour practice meet, meals with family, jobs if they have them, and any form of social interaction.
Socializing- 2 hours (and that's small)
Uh-oh, looks like with this minimally healthy schedule our little teen actually has to go to bed at around 4 am!
Even without a job our teen would barely scratching by midnight.
The American education system is royally fucked up and we need to do something about it. The children aren't just YOUR future, the children are THE future.
Here's some links to why so little sleep is bad.
Sleep deprivation epidemic.
Sleep deprivation and car crashes.
Sleep deprivation and mental health.
Please discuss stuff in the comments. Post how long you do homework, when you go to sleep, other problems you have with the school system I want to do a series.
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