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Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

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Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#231

Post by Apocryphon »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #200
tmuir wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was so traumatizing about the showers available to you in high school? Because I certainly remember first period gym, and I just took a shower afterwards. Then I was right as rain.

It was partly social consequence, and party not wanting to be late for class. Since no one used the showers, the ones who did were usually considered weird or creepy. Even more so when the showers are open designed and you are naked in front of the entire locker room(high school only I think). The bigger half though is not wanting to be late for class. Most schools operate on a 5 minute timer between classes and even…

Would partitioned showers help with this problem?

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#232

Post by dang »

tmuir wrote: post #227
war1025 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really have no idea what this side tangent is about. I made a comment that getting ready twice in short order is a pain, which is why people wouldn't want to have PE first thing. I don't see what any of this has to do with the difference in showering schedules between white collar and blue collar labor. My dad worked in a factory and showered after he got home from work. That was the time of day that made sense bec…

At the risk of blowing your mind, my analogy was referring to the fact that people usually shower AFTER they get dirty. Blue collar workers shower after work, because their work is where they get dirty. Its not because some mythical voodoo. It is precisely and unequivocally because they have accumulated waste on the exterior of their bodie. All of the rest of us that adjusted to the initial new reality of having to e…

Please stop posting flamebait and taking HN threads off topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#233

Post by adam-fn »

Lewis Black [1] made this observation (with less diplomatic language) back in 2004:

    ... I flunked that course. It's not my fault.
    They taught it at 8 o'clock in the morning.
    And there is absolutely nothing that you can
    learn out of one bloodshot eye. After I flunked
    the first two tests, I grabbed the professor
    by the throat and I said, "Why are you
    teaching this **** at this ungodly hour?
    Are you *trying* to keep this stuff a secret?"
[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414224/quotes/qt0252382

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#234

Post by Symmetry »

wpasc wrote: post #53

I disagree with ideas that school schedules should shift later. I am a night owl myself, but our "natural" sleep cycle certainly more or less falls in line with school times. We have fully disrupted our circadian rhythms with our lifestyles and especially screens/lights at night. Before artificial light, our sleep/wake schedule was set by the sun. I know we live in a different world today, but I feel like shifting ou…

No, changes in circadian rhythm with age are fairly constant across human societies, though we westerners do have our additional pathologies. Teenage bushmen tend to stay up later than their parents just like teenage westerners do. Making teenagers wake up earlier than younger children is just a bad idea.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#235

Post by lolsal »

sjg007 wrote: post #185
matte_black wrote: post #178

This just sounds like more excuses. I know plenty of people who got to class at 7:30 AM on the dot and excelled with straight A's. I never had a problem. So what's different?

Some kids can do it. Some go to sleep earlier and wake up refreshed. Some don't, it's biological that's all. I wish I'd gone to bed earlier in high school but I was wired to stay up late. Same in college. It wasn't until I started working that I got to bed earlier. And after having kids man I can go to bed at 8pm easy.

> Some don't, it's biological that's all.

That really sounds like we're hand-waving away what is happening. The biology might be an effect, not a cause.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#236

Post by Symmetry »

sk1pper wrote: post #19

Isn’t your chronotype fairly mutable though? With some dedication and a couple weeks you can adjust to waking up whenever. Especially at college age. Obviously lifestyle could be limiting if you’re trying to start waking up at 6am, but if you’re optimizing for GPA, then you’re gonna have to make lifestyle sacrifices anyway

That's only somewhat true. If you're exposed to sunlight during the day, much brighter than a lit room, it will tend to have an influence on your circadian rhythm. You might be able to sleep at arbitrary offsets but the quality of your sleep will suffer. Though wearing sunglasses when outside during the morning will help you get to sleep later and wearing them outside during the afternoon will help you sleep earlier. And I'm not aware of research showing a problem with shifting your sleep to arbitrary offsets if you're never exposed to sunlight, though that might have other bad effects.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#237

Post by antisthenes »

justherefortart wrote: post #45
anotheryou wrote: post #40

I like how it shows that getting up early ruins the whole day. I have to come an hour early for a meeting every other week and it's always a challenging day... Getting up ~9am is the point at which it doesn't effect my performance anymore (I'd still prefer shifting my sleep phase even further). Sadly this only worked for a job once in my career.

Go to bed earlier. I get up early and have since High School. All I do is make sure I go to bed at a reasonable hour. Going to work, lunch, home early is friggin awesome. Avoiding rush hour, saving me roughly 1 hour a day in traffic, is fantastic. Plus it gives me time to do any personal things in the early afternoon without affecting my work schedule.

Here's what happens (from someone who's been trying this for 12 years, to make the switch):

You go to bed early, lay in bed for an hour or so trying to fall asleep. Eventually, frustrated, you get back up again and try to read a book again for a few hours to help you fall asleep. By now it's very late and you wake up tired in the morning.

Chronic lack of sleep during the week causes you to catch up on the weekend by sleeping in until 11AM or later, which means you can't fall asleep at an early time again.

Your advice doesn't work and you have to frame of reference as to why because it doesn't happen to you.

Do you go around telling fat people to just eat less also?

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#238

Post by downer67 »

matwood wrote: post #111
endymi0n wrote: post #10

I used to have lots of problems getting up early and always championed later times. Growing up through my twenties, it was great seeing finally seeing more and more evidence for a later school start and I was hopeful for future teens. But it wasn't until my first kid that I finally understood that school doesn't start this early because it's good for the learning experience. It starts this early so parents can get th…

What about those kids who wake up early? I've always been a morning person. Even as a kid I remember waking up with the sun because sleeping always felt like a waste a time with so much fun stuff to do.

  so much fun stuff to do
Some of us...

DID NOT. (and still do not)

...have "fun stuff" to do.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#239

Post by joveian »

tozeur wrote: post #131
stephen_g wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My worst semester at University I had three 8am lectures... I knew I was a bit of a night owl, but at this point I didn't realise that I actually had a severe sleep disorder. I had just assumed that what people said (you just have to be disciplined, just go to be earlier, etc.) was potentially true, which was demoralising. It was actually pretty liberating to find out about differences in circadian rhythms. I still g…

How did/do you deal with your different circadian rhythm? I have a friend who can easily sleep 12 hours at a time and consistently goes to bed past 3am and wakes up in the afternoon (and has also dealt with depression in the last). I’m wondering what else I can do to help besides push for no screen time past 10pm etc.

Sleeping 12 hours at a time frequently is hypersomnia (at least if actually sleeping, not just in bed unable to sleep). The wikipedia page on hypersomnia links to a number of things that can cause it, including depression. If possible, getting evaluated for sleep apnea is a good idea since that is at least fairly easy to treat (even if the treatment is rather annoying :/). I have Non-24 and insomnia and had hypersomnia when I was younger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersomnia

I would encourage your friend to look at the Circadian Sleep Disorders Network site:

https://www.circadiansleepdisorders.org/

There is a mailing list mentioned there for people with circaidian rhythm disorders, a good way to hear about what works or doesn't work for other people (you don't need to join the organization to subscribe). There is a huge amount of individual variation both in how people are affected and what helps deal with it. Some people do well if they stick to their internal schedule and some of us don't. Unfortunately, there isn't really good treatment for circadian disorders and trying to live on the shifted schedule can be the easiest for for people who do well on that schedule (which is not to say easy as finding a job on such a schedule can be very difficult).

The standard treatment recommendation is melatonin and avoiding light before bed and light therapy in the morning. This works for some people, at least for a while, but not for most people (I'd recommend putting some effort into trying to adjust the schedule, just know that it might not work). If avoiding all screen time is too difficult, I recommend turning the color temperature on f.lux or redshift way down (I use 2500K). Also worth noting that trying to adjust your schedule by shifting forward can turn DSPS into Non-24 (that is what happened for me, and the CSD-N survey shows it has happened to a bunch of people while only a few find it helpful), so I'd highly recommend against that (unfortunately some sleep doctors recommend it). Also, stay away from benzos; they don't work long term but are addictive.

Re: Poor Grades Tied to Class Times That Don’t Match Our Biological Clocks

#240

Post by Rotdhizon »

Apocryphon wrote: post #231
Rotdhizon wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was partly social consequence, and party not wanting to be late for class. Since no one used the showers, the ones who did were usually considered weird or creepy. Even more so when the showers are open designed and you are naked in front of the entire locker room(high school only I think). The bigger half though is not wanting to be late for class. Most schools operate on a 5 minute timer between classes and even…

Would partitioned showers help with this problem?

Middle schools already have partitioned showers. At least mine did, I imagine most others that have them do as well. The biggest issue with the showering are the time constraints. The social stigma is present, just in a minor fashion. Being late to class trumps all else.
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