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Later school start times in a flexible system improve teenage sleep
- Source :
- Sleep. 43
- Publication Year :
- 2019
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press (OUP), 2019.
-
Abstract
- Sleep deprivation in teenage students is pervasive and a public health concern, but evidence is accumulating that delaying school start times may be an effective countermeasure. Most studies so far assessed static changes in schools start time, using cross-sectional comparisons and one-off sleep measures. When a high school in Germany introduced flexible start times for their senior students—allowing them to choose daily between an 8 am or 9 am start (≥08:50)—we monitored students’ sleep longitudinally using subjective and objective measures. Students (10–12th grade, 14–19 y) were followed 3 weeks prior and 6 weeks into the flexible system via daily sleep diaries (n = 65) and a subcohort via continuous wrist-actimetry (n = 37). Satisfaction and perceived cognitive outcomes were surveyed at study end. Comparisons between 8 am and ≥9 am-starts within the flexible system demonstrated that students slept 1.1 h longer when starting school later—independent of gender, grade, chronotype, and frequency of later starts; sleep offsets were delayed but, importantly, onsets remained unchanged. Sleep quality was increased and alarm-driven waking reduced. However, overall sleep duration in the flexible system was not extended compared to baseline—likely because students did not start later frequently enough. Nonetheless, students were highly satisfied with the flexible system and reported cognitive and sleep improvements. Therefore, flexible systems may present a viable alternative for implementing later school starts to improve teenage sleep if students can be encouraged to use the late-option frequently enough. Flexibility may increase acceptance of school start changes and speculatively even prevent delays in sleep onsets through occasional early starts.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Time Factors
Adolescent
education
Developmental psychology
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Germany
Physiology (medical)
medicine
Humans
Start time
ddc:610
030212 general & internal medicine
sleep
school start time
Schools
Public health
Chronotype
Flexibility (personality)
Cognition
Sleep deprivation
Cross-Sectional Studies
Countermeasure
secondary school
adolescence
Neurology (clinical)
Sleep (system call)
medicine.symptom
Psychology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15509109 and 01618105
- Volume :
- 43
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Sleep
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....471072471d84180f2f215617b1ed9b5c
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsz307