According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance, the number of hours of sleep students get every night on average has been decreasing significantly since 2011. As shown by a survey in 2017, 75% of high school students get fewer than eight hours of sleep every night before school. Almost half of students in the United States get fewer than six hours of sleep every night before school, and this amount of sleep is unacceptable for students who have to wake up early every day to go to school and absorb information. High school students especially tend to dismiss their exhaustion for the sole purpose of fitting in more homework time instead of sleeping. This is a problem because students do not think about the harmful effects lack of sleep has on the brain while they are pulling all-nighters to get work done, and these affects alter their ability to learn in school properly. With these unhealthy mechanisms of staying up late and sacrificing sleep for school work, it is evident that changes should be made. This problem is mainly because school days start at such an early time, giving students little room to make healthy sleeping habits on top of the workload that comes with being in high school. Moreover, the starting times of school days should be made at a later time so that students can get the healthy amount of sleep they need, eat a nutritious breakfast, and maintain good mental and physical health.

A very important, healthy habit that is necessary to maintain a healthy lifestyle is eating a nutritious breakfast in the morning. With school days starting so early, between 7 and 8 o’clock, eating a fulfilling breakfast is very hard for students to do. Breakfast allows glucose to go to students’ brains so that they are able to function and learn properly throughout their day. Eating breakfast is important for testing performance, staying alert throughout the day, and absorbing information. With school days beginning so early and students struggling to get out of bed due to staying up late with a huge workload, eating a good breakfast is a rare thing for most. If school days started a few hours later, students would have plenty of time to get out of bed feeling well rested and to eat a nutritious breakfast to fuel their bodies for the school day. Having more time to eat breakfast would surely improve each student’s academic performance and alertness in class. Nevertheless, if school days started at a later hour, students would have enough time to eat a good breakfast and fuel their brains for better performance and focus on their school work.

Students’ sacrificing of sleep to finish school work could lead to mental health disorders and other health concerns. Students often decide to stay up all night and finish their excessive workload they are given instead of getting enough sleep, and this decision is very unhealthy. Students are not aware that in the moment they may think that cramming their work in the night time will save them some worry and stress, but in fact, lack of sleep is linked to anxiety disorders and depression. If school days started later, students would be able to finish their homework and be able to go to bed getting reasonable amount of sleep. Staying up late doing work and waking up at an extremely early hour is such an unhealthy combination, and this is disrupting students’ REM cycles. Not enough sleep is absolutely detrimental to one’s health, and this problem with students is most definitely linked to such an early start to the school day. Many high school students suffer from depression and anxiety disorders, and these problems are linked to their lack of sleep; moreover, if these mental health problems are already existing in students, the early start to the school day and lack of sleep only worsens these issues. Nevertheless, a later start to the school day would definitely aid in the mental health of students by allowing them to get a healthy amount of sleep.

Some may argue that students should simply “do their work earlier in the day and go to bed earlier”. Many students have commitments, extracurricular activities, or difficulty getting home at an early time during the week due to parents working. For example, many students may have sibling who need to be babysat or sports practice after school, almost making it impossible to start homework at an earlier time. It is extremely unrealistic to expect students to have a perfect balance and distribution of their time throughout their busy everyday lives. Moreover, it is extremely hard for most students to balance getting up well rested, going to school for eight hours, extracurricular activities, commitment or chores to do at home, getting picked up by their parents on time, eating dinner, showering, and getting their homework done properly before a decent time. Students would have to make sacrifices that would be inconvenient for themselves in order to be able to finish their homework and get the right amount of sleep making a change. Nevertheless, it is evident that a change should be made within schools to enforce the well balanced sleep schedules of students. Schools should take more consideration in the business of students’ lives and give them some leeway. Nevertheless, it is almost impossible for students to maintain their regular everyday lives in a well balanced manner and get enough sleep without a change being made, and that change is having a later start to the school day.

Lack of sleep in students is a major problem which is detrimental to the physical and mental health of all students. The early start of the school day makes it very hard for students to maintain a well balanced sleeping pattern, eat a nutritious breakfast, and to get enough sleep to avoid mental health problems. High school students every day are suffering from mental health problems and struggling with academic performance due to staying up late to finish the tremendous workload they are given in school. A very important change that should be made in schools is having the school day start later, which would have extremely positive effects on the academic performance of students, the mental health of students, and the physical health of students. School days should start later in order to enforce the healthy sleeping habits of students,  ensure they ate a healthy breakfast, and maintain good mental and physical health.