Speaker notes for Michelle Jonelis at the Mountain View Los Altos Union High School District Board meeting

Presented on April 8th, 2019

Source: https://www.teenagesurvivalcoach.com/teenage-sleep-how-much-is-needed/

Good evening. My name is Michelle Jonelis and I am a Sleep Medicine physician, Mountain View resident and mother of two. I’m standing up here today to advocate to change our high school start times to 9AM or later every single day.

Teenagers have difficulty getting sufficient sleep during the school week because they are biologically hard-wired to stay up late. Changing school start times to later is therefore the best way to make sure that teens have the opportunity to get the sleep they need.

Current estimates are that the average sleep duration for high school age teens during the school week is just 7 hours. In contrast, the recommended nightly sleep duration for teens is 8–10 hours. Fewer than ⅓ of teenagers currently obtain at least 8 hours of sleep each night.

The consequences of chronic sleep deprivation in teenagers are severe, leading to increased motor vehicle accidents, increased mood disorders, reduced academic performance and increased risk taking behaviors.

Why can’t teenagers get to sleep early? Research suggests that for our ancestors it would have been advantageous for the fittest group of people, teenagers, to naturally stay up late at night to protect the less fit, young children and older adults. This pattern, of teens naturally preferring to stay up later, continues today. One of the largest studies looking at preferred sleep timing over the lifespan found that the average preferred bedtime in teenagers was 2 hours later than that of mature adults. Consequently, most sleep experts agree that high school age children are mostly unable to fall asleep before 11PM to midnight.

Studies looking at school districts that have delayed high school start times do not find that teens simply stay up later after the change in start times. Instead, the teens still go to sleep at the nearly same time as they did prior to the change, resulting in them getting significantly more sleep each night. The later the new school start time, the more sleep the teens get.

Based on the results seen in other school districts, moving the start time for Los Altos High School from 8:10 AM to 9:00 AM would most likely result in at least a 50% increase in the number of teens obtaining at least 8 hours of sleep on school nights. Due to the increased sleep durations of students, the school district as a whole should expect to see improvements in academic performance, reduced tardiness, improved athletic performance and reduced car accidents.

Prior to the 1950’s most high schools in the US started at 9AM and the majority of students were able to wake up in the morning without an alarm clock. You have the power to change our high school start times to allow teenagers to get the sleep they need. These longer sleep durations will translate into healthier, happier, smarter teens.

Thank you for listening.

References and additional research that supports delaying school start times:

1. Roenneberg T, Kuehnle T, Juda M, Kantermann T, Akllebrandt K, Gordijn M, Merrow M. Epidemiology of the human circadian clock. Sleep. Med. Rev. 2007;11:429–438.
2. G. Dunster et al. Sleepmore in Seattle: Later school start times are associated with more sleep and better performance in high school students. Science Advances. Vol. 4, published online December 12, 2018. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aau6200.
3. Adolescent Sleep Working Group, Committee on Adolescence and Council on School Health. School start times for adolescents. Pediatrics 2014 Sep; 134:642.
4. Wheaton, A. G., Chapman, D. P. and Croft, J. B. (2016), School Start Times, Sleep, Behavioral, Health, and Academic Outcomes: A Review of the Literature. J School Health, 86: 363–381. doi:10.1111/josh.12388
5. Paruthi S, Brooks LJ, D’Ambrosio C, Hall WA, Kotagal S, Lloyd RM, Malow BA, Maski K, Nichols C, Quan SF, Rosen CL, Troester MM, Wise MS. Recommended amount of sleep for pediatric populations: a consensus statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. J Clin Sleep Med 2016;12(6):785–786.
6. Hagenauer MH, Perryman JI, Lee TM, Carskadon MA. Adolescent Changes in the Homeostatic and Circadian Regulation of Sleep. Developmental Neuroscience. 2009;31(4):276–284. doi:10.1159/000216538.
7. Russo, P. M., Bruni, O., Lucidi, F., Ferri, R. and Violani, C. (2007), Sleep habits and circadian preference in Italian children and adolescents. Journal of Sleep Research, 16: 163–169. doi:10.1111/j.1365–2869.2007.00584.x
8. Carskadon MA1, Wolfson AR, Acebo C, Tzischinsky O, Seifer R. .Adolescent sleep patterns, circadian timing, and sleepiness at a transition to early school days. Sleep. 1998 Dec 15;21(8):871–81
9. Bei, B., Allen, N. B., Nicholas, C. L., Dudgeon, P., Murray, G. and Trinder, J. (2014), Actigraphy-assessed sleep during school and vacation periods: a naturalistic study of restricted and extended sleep opportunities in adolescents. J Sleep Res, 23: 107–117. doi:10.1111/jsr.12080
10. Wheaton AG, Olsen EO, Miller GF, Croft JB. Sleep Duration and Injury-Related Risk Behaviors Among High School Students — United States, 2007–2013. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2016;65:337–341. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6513a1
11. McMakin, D. L., Dahl, R. E., Buysse, D. J., Cousins, J. C., Forbes, E. E., Silk, J. S., Siegle, G. J. and Franzen, P. L. (2016), The impact of experimental sleep restriction on affective functioning in social and nonsocial contexts among adolescents. J Child Psychol Psychiatr, 57: 1027–1037. doi:10.1111/jcpp.12568
12. Mike, Thomas B. et al. The hazards of bad sleep — Sleep duration and quality as predictors of adolescent alcohol and cannabis use. Drug & Alcohol Dependence , Volume 168 , 335–33
13. Winsler, A., Deutsch, A., Vorona, R.D. et al. J Youth Adolescence (2015) 44: 362. doi:10.1007/s10964–014–0170–3
14. L Rychetnik, M Frommer, P Hawe, A Shiell. Criteria for evaluating evidence on public health interventions. J Epidemiol Community Health 2002;56:119–127 doi:10.1136/jech.56.2.119
15. “Why We Sleep”, by Matthew Walker
16. Morgenthaler TI, Hashmi S, Croft JB, Dort L, Heald JL, Mullington J. High school start times and the impact on high school students: what we know, and what we hope to learn. J Clin Sleep Med 2016;12(12):1681–1689.