![]() In August, researchers at the University of Minnesota reported the results of a study of more than 7,000 high-school students whose school district had switched in 1997 from a 7:15 a.m. Carskadon, PhD, of Brown University Medical School, found that students who reported that they were getting C's, D's and F's in school obtained about 25 minutes less sleep and went to bed about 40 minutes later than students who reported they were getting A's and B's. Wolfson, PhD, of the College of the Holy Cross, and Mary A. ![]() In a 1998 survey of more than 3,000 high-school students, for example, psychologists Amy R. Recent research has also revealed an association between sleep deprivation and poorer grades. "You can be giving the most stimulating, interesting lectures to sleep-deprived kids early in the morning or right after lunch, when they're at their sleepiest, and the overwhelming drive to sleep replaces any chance of alertness, cognition, memory or understanding." "What good does it do to try to educate teen-agers so early in the morning?" asks Maas. Insufficient sleep has also been shown to cause difficulties in school, including disciplinary problems, sleepiness in class and poor concentration. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, for example, drowsiness and fatigue cause more than 100,000 traffic accidents each year-and young drivers are at the wheel in more than half of these crashes. There can be little question that sleep deprivation has negative effects on adolescents. Maas, PhD, one of the nation's leading sleep experts. "Almost all teen-agers, as they reach puberty, become walking zombies because they are getting far too little sleep," comments Cornell University psychologist James B. In adolescents, who are biologically driven to sleep longer and later than adults do, the effects of insufficient sleep are likely to be even more dramatic-so much so that some sleep experts contend that the nation's early high-school start times, increasingly common, are tantamount to abuse. In adults, such meager sleep allowances are known to affect day-to-day functioning in myriad ways. Many students board the school bus before 7 a.m. For most, the alarm clock buzzes by 6:30 a.m., a scant seven hours after they went to bed. ![]() On any given school day, teen-agers across the nation stumble out of bed and prepare for the day. ![]()
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