Tag Archives: high school

teens and sleep

Unambiguously Good News about Teens and Sleep

You read that right. I mean: it’s really good news about teens and sleep. We all want adolescents to sleep more. Better said, we know that they need to sleep more. More sleep should benefit, say, their mental health, their physical



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nap research

Solving the Nap Research Problem (BTW: Naps Help!)

New research from China shows that daytime naps improve several cognitive functions — like sustained attention. Just as important, those naps don’t make it harder to sleep at night. In fact: frequent nappers sleep better than non-nappers. So, grab a pillow! Continue reading



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Teens and Cell Phones

Teens and Cell Phones: The Good, The Bad, The (Not So) Ugly

Debates about teens and cell phones often miss a crucial distinction. Although digital technologies can exacerbate problems for the few adolescents who are already struggling, they can provide real social benefits for the majority who are doing just fine. Continue reading



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An Extra Half-Hour of Sleep? An Extra Hour?

Students whose first class started later than 8:30 got between 27 and 57 (!) more minutes of sleep than students whose classes started earlier. Imagine just how much more learning might happen if a teen regularly got an extra hour of sleep. Continue reading



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Parents, High School Start Times, and Sleepy Teens

Research findings that support later high-school start times have been more and more common in recent years. (See also here.) And teachers I know are increasingly vocal about letting teens sleep later. And yet, when I talk with high school



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sleeplessness harms women

The Evidence Mounts: Delaying Middle and High School Start Times

Here’s the statement from the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine: During adolescence, internal circadian rhythms and biological sleep drive change to result in later sleep and wake times. As a result of these changes, early middle school and high school



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When Does an Adolescent Become an Adult?

Neuroscientist Leah Somerville wrestles with the question: how can we measure, define, and mark the transition from adolescence to adulthood? (And, the New York Times ponders her questions.)



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Does Later High School Start Time Really Lead to More Sleep?

Yes. Ask Canada. Or, better still, gather data from 30,000 Canadian high school students.  



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Puzzled by Adolescents? Or, by Adolescence?

Let Sarah-Jayne Blakemore sort it all out for you in this introductory Ted Talk from 2012.



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Does Internet Use “Rewire Adolescent Brains”?

Our very own Kathryn Mills says: we’ve got a lot of anecdotes, but not a lot of evidence, suggesting that internet use is meaningfully changing — much less damaging — adolescent brains. For example: one study that Mills cites tracks



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