London - As parents know, trying to drag a teenager out of bed in the morning is no easy task.
But according to a study, they should actually be encouraged to sleep in as it would improve their exam results.
This is because their body clocks are behind that of adults and they are less likely to be “optimally alert” during morning lessons.
Almost 32 000 14 to 16-year-olds from 106 schools will take part in the Teensleep trial, led by the Oxford University Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute.
The pupils will be split into groups. One will be educated on healthy sleeping habits, another will start school at 10am, a third will do a combination of both and the fourth will just continue their normal pattern of starting school between 8.30-9am. Researchers will then study the impact on their GCSE results.
Professor Russell Foster, director of the institute, said that a teenager rising at 7am is the equivalent of 5am for an adult. He added: “Recent advances in our understanding of the neuroscience of sleep has shown that the body clock of teenagers is delayed.”
Colin Espie, a professor of sleep medicine at Oxford University, said “science is telling us” that developmental changes in the teenage years make them sleepier in the morning. He added that education might work better “if we adapt our system to the biological state of the young person”. - Daily Mail