{"id":1939,"date":"2021-11-15T13:38:09","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T18:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/?p=1939"},"modified":"2021-11-15T13:38:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T18:38:17","slug":"how-waking-up-too-early-is-affecting-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/how-waking-up-too-early-is-affecting-students\/","title":{"rendered":"How Waking Up Too Early is Affecting Students"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Nicola Staples, staff writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As winter gets closer, each morning is getting progressively darker and the evenings are getting shorter, affecting students that have to wake up at extremely early times. For River Hill students, school starts at 7:25 a.m., and most students wake up around 6:00 and 6:30 a.m, while the sunrise is not until 7:30 a.m. This means that students are up and at school before sunrise. When students are forced to wake up \u201csocial jet lag\u201d can occur, which is when the body is not naturally woken up, causing grogginess throughout the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two hormones affiliated with the body\u2019s sleep cycle, cortisol and melatonin. According to the Huffington Post<\/em>, cortisol is the hormone that gives people energy, and is activated by light, and melatonin is the hormone that helps people sleep, and is activated by darkness. When the body is forced to wake up before sunrise, hormone imbalance occurs, which can cause the risk of depression as well as other health risks. According to Johns Hopkins, the natural shift in circadian rhythms in teens \u201cmakes it more difficult for them to fall asleep before 11 p.m.\u201d along with \u201cearly school start times and an increase in homework, extracurricular activities and sometimes a part-time job, and sleep deprivation in teens becomes common.\u201d Emily Ohl, a senior at River Hill, wakes up at 5:40 a.m. and says that if school start times were later, she would be \u201cmore awake and more interested in learning.\u201d According to the Sleep Schedule, most teens prefer a sleep schedule that is from 11 p.m. to 8 or 9 a.m., which is clearly not attainable due to the school\u2019s start times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the county has proposed the idea for having a later start time for high schools. Sleep is crucial for teen\u2019s mental, physical, social, and emotional development, which is why high schools should accommodate teens and make later start times. Kristina Chao, a junior at River Hill, said that \u201cSleeping is a basic human functional need, and students should be getting more.\u201d Sleep deprivation is a serious problem and can cause drowsy driving, lack of attention, and possibly worsening mental illnesses. Kristina also stated that \u201cHaving to balance extracurriculars and school on a little amount of sleep is difficult.\u201d Having later start times for high schoolers would give students the recommended amount of sleep and time to recharge after a long day. High school students have enough stress put on them, and should be able to have a good night’s rest to prepare them for the day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The link to sign the petition for school start times after 8:00 a.m: http:\/\/sign.moveon.org\/petitions\/changing-howard-county?source=rawlink&utm_source=rawlink&share=6227d725-b4d9-48cb-a0c3-22fb1abbbdb7<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nicola Staples, staff writer As winter gets closer, each morning is getting progressively darker and the evenings are getting shorter, affecting students that have to wake up at extremely early times. For River Hill students, school starts at 7:25 a.m., and most students wake up around 6:00 and 6:30 a.m, while the sunrise is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":1940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Screenshot-2021-11-15-1.37.45-PM.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1942,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1939\/revisions\/1942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/riverhillcurrent.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}