Synchronizing education to adolescent biology: ‘let teens sleep, start school later’

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Table 1. The impact of severe sleep disruption.

Cognitive responses	Emotional responses	Somatic responses
Reduced:	Increased:	Increased risk of:
Concentration	Motor skills mistakes	Metabolic abnormalities
Performance	Stimulant use	Diabetes II
Attention	Sedative use	Weight gain
Memory encoding	Alcohol use/misuse	Cardiovascular disease
Memory consolidation	Exhaustion	Disorders of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis
Multi-tasking	Irritability	Reduced immunity
Decision-making	Mood fluctuations	Drowsiness
Creativity	Anxiety	Micro-sleeps
Productivity	Depressed mood	Unintended sleep
Socialization	Frustration/anger	Bodily sensations of pain and cold
Communication	Impulsivity	Hypertension
Empathy

Figure 1. Average sleep duration as a function of age. (a) Weekly averages of sleep duration. (b) Sleep duration for free days (open circles) and for workdays (grey dots). Curves are polynomial fits; vertical lines represent Standard Errors of the Mean (± SEM; in most cases they are larger than the respective symbols). © [Rightsholder]. Reproduced with permission of Foster et al. (2013).

Figure 2. Test score percentage increases by time in day. Matching word pairs tests were given to subjects (n = 120) at 10:00 and 14:00. Test scores were significantly higher at 14:00. **T-test repeated measures, p < .01; effect size Cohen's d = 0.32. All data are means ± SEM.

Foster, R. G. , S. N. Peirson , K. Wulff , E. Winnebeck , C. Vetter , and T. Roenneberg . 2013. “Sleep and Circadian Rhythm Disruption in Social Jetlag and Mental Illness.” Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science 119: 325–346. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-396971-2.00011-7

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