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Let Teenagers Sleep In

nytimes.com

191–200 of 317 posts

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#191

I used to need 9.5 hours of sleep as a teenager and probably had diagnosable delayed sleep phase disorder. Rules made by 55 year old early risers that only need 6 hours of sleep a night who have become school officials are just cruel and unusual punishment to a chunk of teenagers out there. In a better world there could be a class action lawsuit to make this stop--but its still considered okay to promote "early to be…

Allow me to back this up with an actual piece of research.

Here is an excerpt from the book "Why we sleep" (which BTW is written by a neuroscientist and psychology prof working at the Center for Human Sleep Science )

> An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics. If you are a night owl, it’s likely that one (or both) of your parents is a night owl. Sadly, society treats night owls rather unfairly on two counts. First is the label of being lazy, based on a night owl’s wont to wake up later in the day, due to the fact that they did not fall asleep until the early-morning hours. Others (usually morning larks) will chastise night owls on the erroneous assumption that such preferences are a choice, and if they were not so slovenly, they could easily wake up early. However, night owls are not owls by choice. They are bound to a delayed schedule by unavoidable DNA hardwiring. It is not their conscious fault, but rather their genetic fate. Second is the engrained, un-level playing field of society’s work scheduling, which is strongly biased toward early start times that punish owls and favor larks.

EDIT: This is just one argument against the generalization that humans are hard-wired to sleep early. The book is filled with countless research pieces and experiments; science seems to suggest otherwise. Highly recommended read!

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#192

I used to need 9.5 hours of sleep as a teenager and probably had diagnosable delayed sleep phase disorder. Rules made by 55 year old early risers that only need 6 hours of sleep a night who have become school officials are just cruel and unusual punishment to a chunk of teenagers out there. In a better world there could be a class action lawsuit to make this stop--but its still considered okay to promote "early to be…

>>I'm never going to become an early riser. FWIW: I used to feel this way before I entered my 40’s.

I used to think this way until I realized we program ourselves with words and chose to believe the opposite because neuroplasticity is a thing and we are way less rigid/static creatures than we tell ourselves.

I change my life by changing my words.

Edit: No idea if this is applicable/useful for others, since we are also more complex than simply linguistically programmed machines. It's simply part of my own self-programming experiments. I'm not making claims this will work for all or anyone else; I'm simply sharing my truth. I'm curious if aligning beliefs with intrinsic motivation to change sleep patterns and changing thought/behavior patterns toward morning rising could lead to it.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#193
post #191

I used to need 9.5 hours of sleep as a teenager and probably had diagnosable delayed sleep phase disorder. Rules made by 55 year old early risers that only need 6 hours of sleep a night who have become school officials are just cruel and unusual punishment to a chunk of teenagers out there. In a better world there could be a class action lawsuit to make this stop--but its still considered okay to promote "early to be…

Allow me to back this up with an actual piece of research. Here is an excerpt from the book "Why we sleep" (which BTW is written by a neuroscientist and psychology prof working at the Center for Human Sleep Science ) > An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics. If you are a night owl, it’s likely that one (or both) of your parents is a night owl. Sadly, society…

I never understood why it's lazy to get up late, but not lazy to go to bed super early. What's the difference?

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#194
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they meant is that we evolved in a way that made teenagers having shifted cycles, going to sleep later and waking up later. We're not living in tribes anymore, but evolution is slow and we still cary these biological traits. It therefore hurts teenagers to wake up as early as adults. The point here is not about leaving them more time to socialize in the evening.

Wouldn't accommodating them make evolution slower? Those that have traits making them able to wake up earlier should be "rewarded" if you want to bring change.

Do you realize you're talking about killing people? Evolution happens when the less fit die or otherwise fail to reproduce. If you want to evolve more nocturnal teenagers, the least unpleasant implication is that you want late sleepers to stay sleep-deprived so they'll die in accidents.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well until we run out of "other people's money" of course.

Nobody ever raises this concern when they increase the military budget a couple tens of billions of dollars. It's not some big secret how you'd pay for it. You'd use taxes.

Universal childcare costs a lot more than 50 billion a year.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

6:30AM is just some other city's 11:30AM... the difference in between is just light exposure, food consumption, and activity (the three big zeitgebers). Unless you think you'd never resynchronize after moving across the world, it's pretty obvious that your wake and sleep time would have to be a lot more malleable than you suggest.

No it isn't, unless you keep a completely unnatural and very strenuous artificial light environment. Not just any light source either. This is worse than people who can't eat most foods and have to have an extremely picky diet, because at least they can do that anywhere and can create a stash of food. To expect this of anyone is ignorant and cruel, IMO. > Unless you think you'd never resynchronize after moving across…

What do you do throughout the year as sunrise and sunset vary? For most of us there is a 4-5 hour difference in sunset between June and December.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#197

I used to need 9.5 hours of sleep as a teenager and probably had diagnosable delayed sleep phase disorder. Rules made by 55 year old early risers that only need 6 hours of sleep a night who have become school officials are just cruel and unusual punishment to a chunk of teenagers out there. In a better world there could be a class action lawsuit to make this stop--but its still considered okay to promote "early to be…

6:30AM is just some other city's 11:30AM... the difference in between is just light exposure, food consumption, and activity (the three big zeitgebers). Unless you think you'd never resynchronize after moving across the world, it's pretty obvious that your wake and sleep time would have to be a lot more malleable than you suggest.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? The cycle of light and dark is of the essence here.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#198
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to back this up with an actual piece of research. Here is an excerpt from the book "Why we sleep" (which BTW is written by a neuroscientist and psychology prof working at the Center for Human Sleep Science ) > An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics. If you are a night owl, it’s likely that one (or both) of your parents is a night owl. Sadly, society…

I never understood why it's lazy to get up late, but not lazy to go to bed super early. What's the difference?

Leftover customs from agricultural society, that have become subconscious moralistic norms. If you sleep the daylight hours away on the farm, you will get less productive work done. After ten generations of this, there will be unspoken and unconscious rules about what sort of sleep schedules are acceptable. These don't go away by themselves.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't who has sex with whom the primary issue in most animal groups?

There actually have been studies of primitive tribes and cultures where it was showed that they just didn't realize pregnancy happens from a single man's sperm, so children were considered the entire tribe's or to have multiple fathers (with actual language terms for the various fathers). There's also some cultures where men first slept with men while growing up before settling down with women due to thinking sperm w…

But evolution happens whether or not the creatures in question understand evolution or even heredity. (In fact, if they know nothing about it, that makes it easier for evolution to do its thing without interference.) The legendary "shape of the human penis designed to pull out the sperm of other men who have recently had sex with the same woman", if it worked, would do very well evolutionarily in the first kind of culture you describe. Likewise, if teenagers being awake at odd hours does cause them to have sex and reproduce more often, then (assuming the tribe will take care of the children) the genes that cause them to do this will be selected for, whether or not the teenagers or the adults realize it.

Re: Let Teenagers Sleep In

#200
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to back this up with an actual piece of research. Here is an excerpt from the book "Why we sleep" (which BTW is written by a neuroscientist and psychology prof working at the Center for Human Sleep Science ) > An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics. If you are a night owl, it’s likely that one (or both) of your parents is a night owl. Sadly, society…

I never understood why it's lazy to get up late, but not lazy to go to bed super early. What's the difference?

Research has shown time and again; Humans can't think for themselves.

This mentality is eminent, especially after the fact that we're taught bullshit like this from day 1:

> Early to bed and early to rise makes and man healthy, wealthy and wise

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