Can A SleepyHead Be

a Brainiac?
By:Muma Khan
Dr. Kiehl
Independent Research G/T
2/7/16

Synthesis Paper

There are so many components that factor into getting good grades, one of which is
getting enough sleep. Many high school students these days are sleep-deprived. According to a
study of 1998 done by psychologists Amy R. Wolfson, PhD, of the College of the Holy Cross,
and Mary A. Carskadon, PhD, of Brown University Medical School, 26 percent of high school
students regularly sleep less than six and a half hours on school nights, and only 15 percent sleep
eight and a half hours or more. Teens need approximately 9.2 hours of sleep compared to the 8
hours adults need (Carpenter). In fact, a recent study has found that only 8 percent of high school
students get enough sleep on an average school night (Duval). Sleep deprivation is shown in
many students to decline their academic performance because it disrupts their ability to focus and
absorb new knowledge. According to Wolfson and Carsakadons 1998 study, it was found that
students who got 25 minutes less sleep than students who got As and Bs, were recieving Cs,
Ds, and Fs (Carpenter). This shows that a teens sleep is very essential to their mental and
emotional stability. Because of this, many pediatricians recommend shifting school start times to
an hour or half an hour later, however many schools still havent done so due to many obstacles
like bus schedules that make the suggestion impractical. An alternative to solving the problem of
sleep deprivation in students would be reducing homework levels. This would allow students
who often stay up late trying to finish excess amounts of homework to easily get some more
sleep. This paper will outline how sleep deprivation is negatively affecting the grades of high
school students and how reducing homework would be the most convenient possible solution to
solving this problem.
A generous amount of high school students are victims of sleep deprivation. According to
another study, the average amount of sleep that high school students get is between 7 and 7
hours of sleep, when studies show that adolescents need exactly 9 hours of sleep (Mindell and

Owens). Only about 8 percent of high school students get enough sleep on an average school
night according to yet another recent study. In this study, researchers also found that 10% of
adolescents sleep only five hours and 23% sleep only six hours on an average school night
(Duval). In another recent study, only 10% of students actually received the 9+ hours of sleep
recommended for teens by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Conner).
The issue of sleep deprivation in high school students is highly significant because it may
be hurting their academic performance. Sleep deprivation hurts cognitive ability by causing
trouble with attention, memory, decision making, reaction time and activity, which are important
for school (Mindell, J.A. and Owens J.A.). Study conducted observing brain scans after normal
sleep compared to total sleep deprivation where they found that following total sleep
deprivation, there was a decreased local activation in attention and arousal- related brain regions
such as the thalamus. More activity tests done after the study show slowed reaction rates as well
(Drummond, and Gregory G. Brown). In another experiment conducted, they found that
students who felt more sleepy or tired had lower test scores than those who felt awake and
refreshed (Kaufman, Julia Dewald, and Anne Marie Meiser.) .
According to an interview conducted with sleep specialist Dr. Brian Bohner, sleep
deprivation hurts students academic performance. There are two kinds of sleep, rapid eye
movement sleep (REM) and non- rapid eye movement sleep (non REM sleep). Rapid eye
movement sleep includes dreaming and passively processing knowledge taken in the day before,
locking recently learned information into our brains. Therefore, if the sleep being received isnt
efficient enough for the REM cycle to occur, information does not sink into the brain and acquire
into the persons long- term memory. Non REM sleep consists of three stages. First is the
introductory stage when the person first begins to fall asleep. The second stage is the common

stage of sleep that lasts throughout the whole night, but stage three is the most important stage of
non REM sleep that factors into a students ability to focus the next day. Stage three is known as
the delta stage when the person goes into deepest sleep, and it is when the brain is at its highest
point of being refreshed, allowing ability to be alert and awake the next day. If any of these two
stages of sleep are disturbed it causes a disturbance in how well the person picks up and
processes newly learned information, eventually hurting their academic performance. These
stages are disturbed only if the proper amount of sleep recommendation isnt met (Bohner).
Solutions include many, but the most suggested method by pediatricians is shifting school
start times 20 to 40 minutes later, but this solution remains controversial because its impractical
for many schools. Brandy Roane, an expert in adolescent sleep patterns at the Munroe- Meyer
Institute of Genetics and Rehabilitation of the University of Nebraska Medical Center says more
research should be done to stop sleep deprivation.The result for students with early school start
times is a chronic sleep deficit. (Sylviane). One article even said that school start times being so
early is destructive to teenagers and that their circadian timing system that switches to later
sleeping timing during puberty is disturbed by early sleep times, and that a study shows that
almost half students who started school at 7 :20 were showing similar patterns to those of
narcolepsy patients (Carpenter). In fact, studies have already shown that there are many
successful benefits in shifting school start times. In an interview with Dr. Brian Bohner, he spoke
about a school in Connecticut that shifted its start time somewhere between 20 to 40 minutes
later, and results reflected that SAT scores went up as well as scores received in student courses.
Besides academic performance, other surprisingly additional benefits resulted as well, including
less crime, less alcohol, less unwanted pregnancies, which all led to decreased judgement
between peers as well (Bohner). Pediatricians recommended in 2014 that schools start no earlier

than 8:30 a.m., however not all schools find it practical with things like bus schedules as
obstacles (Richter). Right now only 15 percent of high schools start after eight a.m. as opposed
to the 40 percent who start before eight a.m (Shute).
The second alternative solution that may not hold as many obstacles as shifting school
start times is reducing homework levels because it is a lot more easily applicable of a step for
schools to take. In a research and intervention project at Stanford University, only 10% of
students received the 9 plus hours of sleep recommended for teens by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. Solutions listed were restrictions on screen time because teens stay up
very often due to time spent playing video games and on other technology devices, assigning
manageable homework amounts by the 10 minutes per grade rule, and delaying school start
times by changing schools schedules to start no earlier than 8 a.m. Limiting homework to the ten
minutes per grade rule may just be the best alternative solution to shifting school start times in
order to help students get the sleep they need. Professors of education at Penn State, David
Baker, and Gerald LeTendre, found that in countries with the most successful school systems like
Japan, teachers give small amounts of homework, while teachers in countries with the lowest
scores, like Greece and Iran, give a lot of homework (Hancock). Harris Cooper, a professor of
psychology and neuroscience at Duke University did reviews of academic studies in 2001 and
2006 of homework outcomes, and only found little correlation between the homework and
academic achievement in elementary school. He supports the influential 10 minutes homework
rule, which recommends 10 minutes of homework per grade, beginning with 10 minutes in first
grade up to a maximum of 2 hours for 12th grade (Hancock). Justin Coulson, a parenting expert
and psychologist mentions that according to a recent study, some elementary school children
had three times the recommended homework load., and that despite this, homework still kept

increasing and even started appearing in younger grades like kindergarden, when it is
recommended for young age kids like kindergarteners not to receive homework. He argues that
homework is definitely beneficial when its 70 minutes total, but any more than that is associated
with decreasing test scores. The same article says that no child should have to regularly decide
between homework and sleep. The National Education Association recommended the 10
min/grade level rule for homework, so a high school senior should have no more that 2 hours of
homework per night. An analysis published by the Brookings Institute concluded that 15% of
seniors and juniors received more than 2 hours of sleep/night. Another study included that 15%
of parents were also concerned that their children were receiving excessive homework,
concluding that excessive homework is occurring in about 1 in every 6 teenagers (Canapari).
Although changing school start times did prove successful through many studies and
experiments, it still remains an impractical solution to most schools. Reducing homework can be
this alternative solution because it can easily help decrease this issue of sleep deprivation even if
it doesnt totally eliminate it. Also, it is more easily applicable and convenient, and needs to
happen in order for us to finally take a step towards decreasing sleep deprivation in high school
students.

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