Circadian Rhythms: Why Teens Are Tired in School 

This seems so obvious, but schools still wonder why kids come to school at 7 am unenergetic and half concious after spending most afternoons forced to do something and having like 5+ assignments due the next day with a sprinkle of tests throughout the week. Then have the decency to berate the children on their laziness. 🤦‍♀️

Schools aren't meant for education. They're for babysitting for working parents. The timing reflects this.

They don't teach this in schools. The more you know 😊

Absolutely, schools should adapt their timetable to fit with teens natural cycles. It will improve their wellbeing and attainment!

I’m tired now after losing an hour sleep from daylight savings.

I just came from school exhausted, passed out on my bed because I was too tired. And then woke up and this is the first thing on my feed.

I support the idea of changing the beginning hour of school since I was a student and now as a mother of a teenager I still believe the same thing. It makes no sense to have sleepy students in classes!!!

Yes this should have been done long ago, the problem is that such propositions are easily considered by parents and the authorities as 'you just want an easy life, or you dont want to struggle or you just dont want to work hard' and they are tempted to say this, so it became really easy to dismiss such an idea. The same goes for other sensitive issues like mental health, its really easy to dismiss any idea of change in habits and behaviour of people.

I just sent this to my 83 year old father feeling vindicated for his constant nagging during my teens when I slept till noon on weekends. I am still a night owl and I chose a job that lets me handle working hours as I see fit. Haven’t gotten out of bed before 9 am for a loooong time 🎉

I used to be a night owl, but after I was rear-ended by a drunk years ago, and had a bad stroke, damage to my hypothalamus means that (among other things) that I have no adenosine or melatonin reception -- ergo no circadian rhythms. I can assure you as much as I groused about mornings, having no sleepiness is completely no fun. I have to use bedtime rituals and meditation -- sometimes medication -- to be able to sleep at all. Sleepiness seems like a blessing when you don't have it anymore. I remember it as being peaceful and delicious to settle down for sleep...

See the problem with that is, the officials in charge of that schedule assume that studies like these are hilariously stupid and that teenagers are just being overdramatic and lazy for wanting an extra 30 minutes or an hour of sleep and that it would be dumb to change the nations high school schedule just to cater to the teenagers sleep cycle

2:08 As a teenager i was depressed for around 2~3 years. The school stress wasn't great and the lack of sleep didn't help either. For somewhat related reasons i was allowed to stay out of school for around 3 months. During that time i made more progress than the years before that and even beat my depression. I dont know where i would be now, if i hadn't been able to give my body the oppertunity to let it deal with my emotions. Sometimes all you need is a break and some sleep. I can wholeheartedly reccomend it if anyone is in a hard place.

Good luck trying to sell Biological truths to most schools. That said, one factor which hasn't been mentioned is the work cycle of the parents - a lot of jobs need you to be ready by 9am and end at 5pm, which may make it harder for parents to get their children to school on time in areas with bad transport. I do support the idea of changing in accordance to natural rhythm, but this change couldn't be made in isolation.

Hearing about schools starting before 8am in other countries feels so weird for me, because here in Australia every school I’ve been to starts at 9am

YES THEY SHOULD. I'm here sleeping 5 hours a day cause I gotta do all the academic work but also find time to relax and vent stress.

It's so weird because it feels like this should be such common knowledge but even when I say this to people they refuse to give a shit

School drains us of our lives, emotions, friends, family and dreams

I'm 16 years old and I can tell you something. I don't have any appetite, I feel like the only reason I eat is because of boredom. I have no desire to go into direct meetings or conversations with other people and lately I hardly even talk to others.

When I was in college, I had scheduled ALL my classes in the afternoon and evening. I was fed up with getting up early to attend classes. 😂

Most teenagers are usually asleep at 7am. Now imagine them being forced to learn calculas at those hours. 🤦‍♀️

As a teenager, I'm struggling with this a lot. I always wondered what's wrong with me cuz classes aren't even that boring. I just get sleepy. But then not everyone in my class is sleepy. I wonder why 😔

Sleep deprivation is one of the many reasons I switched to online classes. I wasn't getting the hours of sleep I needed because I was forced to be up way sooner than I was supposed to. Now that I can work at my own pace and actually get rest I've found myself to be much more productive and happy. It really shows that these schools need to learn to accomodate for different internal clocks instead of acting like everyone is supposed to be the same.

That thumbnail is wild

Bro the thumbnail 😂

Imagine saying to kid to wake up 6 am every day of their life and when they say they're tired you say "why you dont sleep more?"

That thumbnail is WILD

I grew up in England and for me secondary school started at 9 am and went until 4. And then I moved to America and my high school started at 7:25 am and ended at around 12 or 1, I can’t remember exactly. Either way, I noticed I was just absolutely exhausted with the earlier start time, and would always nap for at least an hour after coming home, when I never took naps when I lived in England. I thought it was awesome that I’d get more hours to myself in the day with the earlier school day finish, but it makes you so tired that you end up actually losing time.

I didn’t understand just how bad this problem was until I got to middle/high school, I was an earlybird as a child, even for a child I fell asleep and woke up pretty early, but I was shocked by this whole thing when I got to later school years and became a teenager, I am still an early bird but I’m a teenager earlybird, and my sleep cycle matches pretty close to an adult night owl

The thumbnail is so sus

They didn't hesitate with the Thumbnail💀

Thumbnail be wildin

The thumbnail at 1:26 tho.. they knew what they're doing

This feels like a big revelation.

Thank you for supporting the idea!

Now hear me out on that thumbnail 👀

I’ve always been an early bird falling asleep at 10 pm and waking up at 6 am naturally. I guess I’ve never had a teenager’s circadian cycle 😂

So no one is questioning the thumbnail?? Alright.

I absolutely think that this is a wonderful idea! I also personally think that the entire school system needs to be completely overhauled anyways as to not only give more information, updated information, but also help its students not only reach their full potential, but also help them realize what that potential might be, how to apply it to the real world, and how to function in a modern society. We can clearly see that a blanket curriculum is not the most effective solution for our schools, worse still it seems to actually be doing worse now than it has ever been before (thanks to several factors which I will not get into here). The current system by and large hasn't been updated in any meaningful way since its inception around 150 years ago in the Industrial Revolution, wherein its primary purpose was to raise the literacy rate and move people directly into factory positions. Now that the settings have for the most part changed a small section of what is taught has changed, but the underlying system remains the same.

i have a hobby that started because of my gradual losing of good sleep, and that is figuring out how my brain works. like my brain gets so stressed i have very different moods that are present in different times/moments to the point they feel like different personalities. For that i record each thing that i see is present in these different moods and actually categorized/identified their most prevailing characteristics. When i separate these moods i manage to keep my emotions and thoughts in check by pretending to be different people having these moods talking to each other, it helps me gain new perspectives and approaches to situations and basically i can make and give myself advice.

I remember being so exhausted and forgot to do homework one night and my teacher and parents acted like it was the end of the world

I'm here for the thumbnail 😊❤

bro knows what he’s doing in the thumbnail

I’ve been sick for the past weekish and I was awake for like 3 days straight and felt “fine”

In germany, the school after elementary has a wide range of classes from 5-12 which makes this problem even harder to solve as the 5-7th graders may not need that change but the higher classes do. I generally am really negative the way the schedules works.

Absolutely love the drawings in this one.

The thumbnail is wild 🤪

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STATING THIS

Just what I was searching for!

This is so Important yet so many schools and universities don’t change or adapt

THE THUMBNAIL?!

I feel it is also very important to take account time for traveling to school. I lived in 7 mins walk to school and I could wake up whenever I needed to. But then we moved and I had to take a bus for 25 mins which drastically affected my routine and make it much harder to focus on the lesson and I was feeling sleepy more often

Nice, thanks for the information.

WHAT IS THAT THUMBNAIL

The sun be enjoying the views in the thumbnail💀

This explains a LOT, thank you soo much!! ^^ And yeah, schools should adapt.

what's up with the thumbnail

Thumbnail wilddddd😭😭

i dont regret dropping out.

Nice thumbnail

I think the art in your videos is really cool

I'm watching this while I go to college sleepy XD Pretty interesting! Some ago on my highshool days I proposed a new model to increase more physical activity for a better learning.

thumbnail is genius marketing

Sleep patterns are extremely important for mental health for most of my teenage years i slept around 4/5 hours and the result of that was depression and exhaustion currently im having a constant 8 hours of sleep and its helpt me a lot

Keep up the good work 👏

Thumbnail got me feeling devious 😃

I like this channel for two main reasons: 1) The topics are really interesting and I can learn something new 2) They say "suicide" instead of "Unalive". Seriously I hate the word "unalive", is stupid, childish and seems to ridiculize a serious problem of our society.

In Brazil, classes start at 7 am, so if you live far from school, you need to wake up at 5:30 am, this is very tiring and is very bad for maintaining concentration.

2:51 I didn’t know that but it makes so much sense.

Ay bruh, that thumbnail got me 🤨

The sun is examinating that gyatt 👌🗿

Last year was my last year in school, what we Brazilian call the “Ensino Médio” is basically your high school, I’m lucky my school was a short walk from home, most of my colleagues lived far away, so when I was waking at 6:15 am and saw the sun rise most of them were waking up at minimum 5:20 in complete darkness, classes started at 7:10 and went to 12:50 with a 1 hour brake for lunch then up until 16:45, we were stressed, angry and broken by the time we got home. This cycle worsened my depression, it came to a point I just couldn’t sleep at night anymore and watched the sun rise and passed out in school, I didn’t care about assignments anymore and left exams blank because I genuinely didn’t see a point considering I was constantly fighting the urge to jump off a quarry near home and was loosing that battle, now I’m fighting the results of 3 years of this misery with nothing to show for it

I live in norway, and the elementary school that I went to starts at 08.45 or 08.40 am and ends at 1.40pm, and the middle/high school starts at 09.00am and ends at 2.30pm, and the school or college that I go to now starts at 08.10am and ends at 1.30pm on Tuesday and Thursday, 3.10pm on Monday and Wednesday and 2.25pm on Friday. Love from Norway ❤️🇧🇻

the thumbnail is crazy

if everyone needs an alarm, dosent that mean school starts too early?

I failed two driving tests because I was so tired i didn't get enough sleep. I even forgot how to go uphill and dowbhill with a manual car.

Evolution of MY sleep cycle: Before and in Year 7: I had no phone and set sleep times which even when i forced myself for an hour, it was hard but i got to sleep. I had energy and i had a drive to learn as much as possible. Year 8: The only thing to note is that my drive to learn weakened. Year 9: THE INTRODUCTION OF THE PHONE. I had less sleep however my sleep cycle was still being pushed onto be but slowly i started using my phone more in night. Year 10: not much changed but i started getting less sleep while getting used to it. Year 11: Worse to be seen, i sometimes would only get 4 hours of sleep but I made sure to not be awake past a certain time so i would at least get 7 hours of sleep as much as possible. Year 12: i worked to get proper sleep by getting into bed earlier and avoiding the bed before sleep time as a body clock. My energy levels went right back to my early years of highschool.

The sun was screaming GYATT

nah they knew what they were doing with that thumbnail

I wish more schools are aware of this. And try to change their systems

It's not only about schools. Some companies already have starting time for workday set to "before 12:00". So you can start when it's comfortable for you.

thumbnail goes hard

Whyd you make the thumbnail look like that

My sleep schedule has always been very bad. I suffered from insomnia at a very young age and even now I still can’t sleep properly. Can you make a video on how insomnia can disrupt sleep so badly? I want to be able to understand it more.

I just love how this is such an obvious fact, yet many schools fail to make this change.

Thumbnail got me moving mad

i’ve GYAT to know wtf u guys were doing w the thumbnail 🗣️🗣️🗣️

I got 8 hours of sleep every night in highschool and I didn't go through a typical moody teen phase. This was interesting because my mood is still greatly affected by my menstrual cycle. I think sleep was probably a leading reason why I was such a chill teen who had no trouble with my schoolwork.

The concept of sleeping and highschool is something rather interesting to me. Im also still a highschoolar and many times talked about this online. I even mentioned this to my parents, but they see it as something they can do nothing about. Let me begin (i try to not go fully in details to shorten this). I always wake up at 6:15 am for school since i have 1 hour and 20 minute travel time (which i hate). My normal waking time is later during the day. I love going late to sleep and wake late. Im most active during 10-11:00 pm right when i need to sleep. Im most tired during late hours of 1-2 am. I also saw mayself as a night person since i prefer working during the night than day. My waking time is on average around 1:30-2 pm. Havent seen actual weekend morning for so long since i would sleep through it. So as you can see it doesnt work in my favour to wake at 6:15 while my orginal waking time is 2:00 pm. It can be me just sleeping too long ,but everyone has different sleeping schedule and im comfortable with mine. *Waking at 6:15 am for school*. Its rather tiring. You have to get up and dress. I take 30 minutes to get ready because im so tired. I qould spend 10 minutes just staring st myself in the mirror or sitting on the toilet doing nothing. When in school i would be tired. Most of time i sleep only 5-6 hours (yesterday i coulnt even sleep for entire day so i didnt go to school. The cause might be the fact i was too worried about the idea of going to school since i was sick week prior). So with 6 hours of sleep i go to the class and do nothing important expect joke around. During the day i would shiver from my anxiety. I would even consider not buying and lunch since i wouldnt have a will or appetite to eat. My muscles feel like not as tired ,but anxious. Hard to explain specially now when im tired ,but it would be as if you dont want to sit nor stand. You would just want to lay on something soft like couch and relax for a moment ,but since this is school and you have hard wooden chairs its hard to consider such point of relaxation so you would be forced to stay alerted. Also P.E. starting time proves my point of how poorly school hours are made. Imagine waking up tired woth little sleep. You havent eaten nor drank any water. Now imagine having to run and do exercises like that. You wouldn't be able to keep up. I noticed that its impossible to do P.E. while before lunch break because you are tired and low on energy. Also sleepy and barely aware. If you ask me P.E. NEEDS to be starting at 11-12 am after lunch break and after you wake up, but how to fit so many classes in so little hours? Lets get back to other subjects. Going to school tired and sleepless is pointless. I explained it to my parents many time. Everytime i go to school tired i would just wait for class to end. I wouldn't follow any teaching nor study. I would just daydream or stare blank into the wall. Then i ask them: "Whats the point of going to school if you would just skip through it? Its waste of my time and will which i can put into sleeping good amount and waking fully energetic." Well their reaction is to go against me as if i insulted anything they belived in. That happened yesterday when i told them i havent slept ,but stayed awake. *Final: Dream* I was rather fascinated by dreams. If i slept for 8-9 hours and had extensive dreams i would feel most of the time creative and well rested. Once i had 12 different dreams which could go for around 10-15 minutes of lasting (altogether). When i woke up i felt just unbelievable, specially when i didnt have school. I felt just so relaxed, calm, energetic, positive and creative. I felt like i havent felt ever since. My brain felt like if it were working ,but without any brain fog. Felt so healthy and well. Even quickly tossed few games of chess against more advanced bots for my rsnking and had good games. And thats what i noticed. When i would dream well with enough rest i would feel so good. My brain never would feel like it has brainrot comparing to now while im writing this. Thats why i hate school. It doesnt allow me to sleep how much i want and need. I hate that i have to learn while im tired. I hate hearing excuses "Thats what awaits you" sure let it await me ,but why does it have to be now? This what i wrote feels rather poorly made and put together. Im just sleepy. I cant really concentrate and i hate taking naps. After naps i take two hours figuring who i am and where i am. So i wouldn't even take one now. Whether the case i rather wanted to express my view and opinion. I would prefer to have writen this during the weekend. Might as well rather change it and better shape what this should be ,but for now it is what it is.

Parents will never understand this.

Who needs sleep

Ive always been a nightowl, but it got really outlandish while working. Im a 25 year old, and for 6 years i work the night shift at work. Usually 5-midnight. And i never felt tired during those shifts. Sometimes i dont fall asleep until around 1-2 am. And when i sleep, i sleep intoll 10-11am naturally

Posting this right after daylight savings was clever!

Literally every kid at school drinks energy drinks made for 18+ even when a lot of them get at least 8 hours of sleep. Many kids including me barely get 4-6.

because they are GROWING

I'm pretty sure it's somewhere like Finland where they've adapted the school hours to fit teenagers sleep cycle and the results are extremely impressive- they are more productive than western schools despite waking up later and spending less time learning (more time exercising).

Very good video

I got clickbaited because I didn’t read the title

Me blaming the educative system for failing the exam i didnt study for

You just explained all, litteraly ALL of my problems in 2min

I was home schooled and started st 9am. I slept enough to feel energized and eager to learn. This goes to show. Let teens sleep.