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Morning Blues
Get Your Teen out of Bed
By Laura Paul
" ... it's a very hard problem and there are no easy solutions because the timing of the activities that we ask of our teenagers is not physiologically sound with the amount of sleep they require," says Dr. Simon. "You cannot have these kids staying up until 10, 11 or 12 at night for school-sponsored social events and then be expected to be in school the next day at 7 and function."
Although it would be nice for high schools to delay their start times, that's not likely to happen, and most high schools have start times that require teenagers to get up as early as 5:30 a.m.
Dr. Simon says it is possible for people to move their biological clocks and change the timing by about one to two hours a day. "It depends on when we expose our eyes to bright light and dark," he says. "The human brain can change about an hour or two per day."
By Friday, many teenagers have already built up significant sleep debt before they start their late-night weekend activities. "Because teenagers are teenagers, they have lots of energy, and Friday night it's important to go to the football game and dance afterwards," Dr. Simon says. "So they do, and they stay up until midnight or so and go to bed like they are supposed to, and they fall asleep quite nicely. But because they are good kids, Mom or Dad lets them sleep in. They get up then at 10 or 11 the next morning because they are exhusted, and there is that huge sleep debt that drives that sleep."