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Let Teenagers Sleep

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#141

Post by xyzelement »

ArchOversight wrote: post #51

> This shift reverses at adulthood. The biological nature of this daily rhythm means that sending a teenager to bed earlier won’t necessarily mean they fall asleep earlier. No, this shift does not reverse in adulthood for some people... I am in my 30's and I still fall asleep midnight to 1 AM, and wake up "late" by most adult standards at around 8/9 AM. I can not shift my sleep schedule to earlier, I've tried many ti…

If you are anything like me, what you are able to do is driven by what you have to do :)

I used to be a developer/dev manager and in that life, if you booked a 9 or even 9:30 am meeting with me, the odds of me being in by then were low. I loved sleeping in.

Then I moved to the business side and my life was that quite often, I had to be at the airport say 7am. So now there was a REASON to move my life to an earlier schedule and it was doable.

Now we have little kids, who get up super early so there's yet another pull towards an earlier start to the day, and I am able to do it fine.

If there was no pull, I'd probably sleep till 10 but I don't think I'd be happier or more productive.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#142

Post by Waterluvian »

rajin444 wrote: post #127
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

I used to be really big on trust the experts, seek authorities for advice, etc etc. Especially for areas involving mental / general health. Specifics like fixing a broken arm I’m still on the experts side :) Decades later I’ve had many (eerily similar) experiences to what you detailed above. I’ve gotten the best results evaluating issues on my own / with the help of a few trusted sources. Expert advice is about as re…

I don’t distrust modern medical community, but I think it often suffers from overconfidence that leads me to more carefully scrutinize (but not outright reject) expert opinion.

I’ve been listening to a podcast called Sawbones where they talk through the history of medicine. It’s basically a tour of all the ways we got things wrong. My conclusion has been: and why are we so confident that this time we’re right? Seems like every generation is confident that finally, they’ve got it right.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#143

Post by TylerE »

solveit wrote: post #44
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

> My guidance counseler suggested I dont attend college, just a community college (despite the fact that I got admitted to a decent state school) What's wrong with guidance counselors in American high schools? Why do I keep hearing about them giving kids incredibly stupid advice?

That is excellent advice in many states. For instance, here in NC you can do the first 2 years of almost any undergrad degree (all the basic non-subject matter stuff) for a fraction of the cost, and every single credit transfers. Also, much much smaller classes.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#144

Post by xyzelement »

tmpz22 wrote: post #40

As a teenager I used to stay up until 2-3am watching movies on my ipod touch - which had a ludicrously small screen by todays standards. I'm in favor of moving back start times but we should also better study and educate on the consequences of bad personal habits.

// should also better study and educate on the consequences of bad personal habits.

Yeah - and you can get away with bad habits until you can't. An ex of mine was very successful through her early 30s despite being out and partying late quite often. Then she joined Goldman Sachs where the bar is higher, and all of a sudden she was like "shit, I gotta go to bed early if I need to keep up."

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#145

Post by joezydeco »

gabereiser wrote: post #57

The real blame for early high school is extra-curricular sports. Basketball, Football, etc. For those sports to thrive, teams need to practice, in order for practice to be efficient, it needs to be at least an hour. So 2 hours are allocated (suit up, practice, suit down). In order for children to be able to commit to 2 hours extra of their time BEFORE their parents get home (5pm), class would have to end by 3pm. Now,…

This is exactly why. We've been at our administrators for years and the response always is "the bus routes" but in reality it's because of the sports schedules.

High school sports is a drain on the educational system, plain and simple. It lacks equity - an disproportionate amount of money is spent on very few children. The football coach in our HS has a Vice Principal title, so he doesn't have to teach classes but knocks down $100K+ to run the team. There are maybe 120 kids in the football program, in a high school of 2000.

If you look at Europe, sports clubs are run by outside groups and happen after school on their own resources. I'd love to see that here. I mean, we do have year-round club teams and that's another problem. Too many parents overload their kids with sports either because they're living through their kids, or they think it's a shot at a college scholarship. It burns the kids out and rarely turns into anything profitable.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#146

Post by Folcon »

rajin444 wrote: post #127
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

I used to be really big on trust the experts, seek authorities for advice, etc etc. Especially for areas involving mental / general health. Specifics like fixing a broken arm I’m still on the experts side :) Decades later I’ve had many (eerily similar) experiences to what you detailed above. I’ve gotten the best results evaluating issues on my own / with the help of a few trusted sources. Expert advice is about as re…

> I think the majority of modern healthcare exists to make a profit and curing patients isn’t really a good business model. Unfortunately they can use those profits to create an army of experts and studies.

Not all healthcare is for-profit healthcare. I agree incentive alignment is an issue when we're talking about for-profit healthcare, but in other cases medical professionals treat patients to the best of their ability.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#147

Post by Spivak »

beebmam wrote: post #82
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

> As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables This is contradictory. Vegetables are high in carbohydrates as a percentage of their calories.

We've ruined multiple generations by not explaining that our bodies don't care that much about what form our nutrients take. Getting the meat sweats from an Italian sub doesn't mean it was unhealthy, it's just your body's reaction to processing it which can be a desirable feeling (say on Thanksgiving) or not.

People who switch to "healthy" and feel better pretty much fall into three categories.

* Their new diet is less enjoyable and they simply eat less and burning fat feels good.

* They accidentally switched to a FODMAP diet and associate the lack of "reaction" from food as a sign of health.

* They have been criminally deprived of fiber and are now regular for the first time in recent memory.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#148

Post by _yb2s »

I was a nerdy, awkward kid with a lot of social anxiety, that experienced a lot of bullying and hazing at school. I would stay up all night playing on the computer, and just sleep in class during school. At home I would draw the blinds and stay in my messy room alone, in the dark. I was overweight, had bad acne, and had no energy.

I was in a lot of pain, and felt like absolute shit, but nobody seemed to understand or care. They would tell me I needed to stop being "lazy" and clean my room, and do my homework. I wanted to really bad... but didn't know why I couldn't focus. I felt an enormous amount of guilt, like I was a total failure.

As an adult, I was able to turn all of that around by focusing on basic health things- exercise, sleep, diet, and processing emotions. It seems like I was just extra sensitive to those issues, more so than most people. As a father, I hope I can help my son from going through the same.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#149

Post by Fr0styMatt88 »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #81
fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

Weird. My guidance councillor did the same. Well, I wasn’t accepted to a school at the point in which they encouraged me to settle for less, but it was a very heartfelt “don’t even try”. I left the room very confused and upset. Went in with ambition and excitement about my future and left feeling like I must be a complete idiot. I remember her saying “Let’s focus on being realistic. You aren’t actually going to do th…

A bit of an aside but it’s so strange to me seeing ‘trades’ referred to as a lowly thing. Here in Australia, tradies are admired, often earn really good money and get a lot of good attention. They can work hard and put in the hours to get ahead whereas us IT guys on salary have a much more ‘fixed’ earning potential.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep

#150

Post by [deleted] »

fdgsdfogijq wrote: post #17

As a teenager I was diagnosed with "ADD". Very intelligent, but unable to focus or complete assignments. My life habits were carb heavy unhealthy food (from the cafeteria), soda, lack of sleep due to long school commute, not much exercise As an adult, I eat no carbs, all meat and vegetables, I work from home and sleep in as far as I need every night. My thinking is laser sharp. They tried to medicate me with all sort…

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