A recente study prove that : More sleep on school days improves young people’s health-related quality of life

Many young people's health and well-being were negatively affected by the school closures in spring 2020. However, there was a good side to homeschooling: many teens reported increased health and health-related quality of life as a result of sleeping longer in the morning. As a result, the authors of the study from the University of Zurich feel that school days should start later in the morning.

More sleep on school days improves young people’s health-related quality of life

From March 13 to June 6, 2020, the first wave of the Covid-19 epidemic forced the closure of all schools across the country. Multiple studies have found that throughout this time, young people's symptoms of sadness and anxiety rose, while their happiness and quality of life deteriorated. In addition, the students were less physically active and spent more time in front of screens.

A new research from the University of Zurich (UZH) has found that homeschooling has a favorable impact on many teens' health and well-being. "During the lockdown, pupils received around 75 minutes extra sleep every day." At the same time, their health-related quality of life increased dramatically, and their intake of alcohol and caffeine decreased," says Oskar Jenni, a UZH professor of developmental pediatrics and the study's co-leader. They were able to sleep in later because they no longer had to commute to school.

More sleep on school days enhances the health-related quality of life of young people.

During the lockdown, the researchers conducted an online poll with 3,664 high school students in the Canton of Zurich, inquiring about their sleeping habits and overall quality of life. They then compared the responses to those from a 2017 poll of 5,308 young people. The findings revealed that during the three months when schools were closed, teenagers awoke 90 minutes later on school days but only went to bed 15 minutes later on average, implying that their overall quantity of sleep rose by 75 minutes each day. On weekends, there was minimal variation in the two groups' sleep schedules.

The students in the lockdown group had a greater health-related quality of life, and they reported using less alcohol and caffeine than the students in the pre-pandemic group. "Although the lockdown definitely harmed many young people's health and well-being, our data suggest a benefit of the school closures that has gotten little attention until now," Jenni adds.

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to research the impact of later school start times

Sleep deprivation in teens can result in feelings of exhaustion, worry, and physical illnesses. These, in turn, have a negative impact on cognitive processes including focus, memory, and attention, making it much more difficult to operate in everyday life. The early start to the school day in Switzerland is incompatible with teenagers' normal, biologically established sleeping patterns. Many young people suffer from chronic sleep deprivation as a result of having to wake up early for school. Several cantons around the nation have lately added the issue to their political agendas.

"Our findings clearly show the value of starting school later in the morning so that children may get more sleep," Jenni explains. He believes that if the pandemic had not had such detrimental consequences on mental health, the beneficial benefits on health and health-related quality of life would have been substantially larger.

Literature:

Joëlle N. Albrecht, Helene Werner, Noa Rieger, Natacha Widmer, Daniel Janisch, Reto Huber, Oskar G. Jenni. Association of Adolescent Sleep Duration During COVID Pandemic High School Closure – Effects of homeschooling on adolescents’ sleep and health. JAMA Network Open. 5. January 2022. DOI: 10.100/jamanetworkopen.2021.42100