Persuasive Essay: Why School Should Start Later?

Sleep is an important part of life. It grows muscle, repairs tissue, synthesizes hormones, and even helps memory. However, many teenagers do not get the eight to ten hours of sleep that is recommended by doctors. Much of this is because of the extracurriculars and homework that most of them have. On top of that, many schools start much earlier than the time recommended by sleep researchers and pediatricians, 8:30am. Because of this, teenagers suffer with school, health, and overall functionality. For teenagers to get more sleep, school start times should be delayed to 8:30am because it improves educational performance, it decreases health risks common in adolescents, and it copes with teenagers ' natural sleep schedule. One important reason why school needs to start later is because more sleep improves educational performance. In fact, “Studies have shown that middle and high school students with adequate amounts of sleep, 8-10

Teenagers are known to posses many negative characteristics including forgetfulness and irresponsibility. Sleep researcher Wendy Troxel states that “many of the… unpleasant characteristics that we chalk up to being a teenager - moodiness, irritability, laziness, depression - could be a product of chronic sleep deprivation” (“Why School Should Start Later”). Traits that do not normally seem as if they were influenced by sleep surprisingly are. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight, not engage in daily physical activity, suffer from symptoms of depression, engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs, and perform poorly in school” (“Schools Start Too Early”). Not only does sleep affect teenagers’ characteristics, but it also affects their health and risk