America's Sleep Crisis: New Study Shows Effects Of Teens Starting School Later

New research has found that there are benefits to moving the start of school later in the morning. Amid growing concerns about sleep deprivation, a survey from the journal Sleep, supported "the significant benefits of delaying [middle school] and [high school] start times on student sleep and daytime sleepiness."

A two-year survey of about 28,000 students at Denver's Cherry Creek School District found that the later start times resulted in high school students seeing "sufficient sleep duration significantly increased and clinically significant daytime sleepiness decreased."

In February, Sleepfoundation.org found that nearly 60% of middle schoolers do not get enough sleep on school nights and over 70% of high schoolers don't get enough sleep. It also noted that "both the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that both middle and high schools begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m."

Sleep disorder is considered a health epidemic. The Centers for Disease and Prevention has reported that youth who don't get efficient sleep face many health and behavior risks.

Teens need up to 9.5 hours of sleep per night, an hour or so more than they needed at age 10, according to Johns Hopkins pediatrician Dr. Michael Crocetti.

"Teenagers are going through a second developmental stage of cognitive maturation,” said Crocetti.

There are many negative consequences for teens who lack sufficient sleep, which supports a developing brain. In 2015, Stanford Medicine listed an "inability to concentrate, poor grades, drowsy-driving incidents, anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide and even suicide attempts."

Brant Hasler, an associate professor of psychiatry with the University of Pittsburgh, compares the effect of standard schedules as “social jet lag” equivalent to a weekly flight between New York and San Francisco.

"Think about the jetlag that you felt in the days after you returned, and then imagine the impact on your well-being of doing it every week for 9 months of the year," Hasler told CNN in a report about the Cherry Creek School District sleep study.