A majority of high school students across the state of Jammu and Kashmir do not receive a sufficient amount of sleep.There are 70 percent of public schools started earlier than 8:30 am. Students often do not acquire the recommended eight to ten hours of sleep due to a natural and biological tendency for teenagers to fall asleep at later times. Contrary to logical thinking, most school systems fail to recognize the destructive effects of such lack of sleep and implement a learning schedule in direct opposition to the mental and physical needs of the student body. Without the dramatic shift nationwide of school start times and the crucial support of the public in order to create a vital change, high school students will continue to be at a high risk of depression, fatigue, and stress, all aspects of which plague the nation’s education system and leads to an askew societal mentality which values production more than health and happiness.
Research supporting the positive effects of earlier start times is nonexistent and stems from possible logistical issues that may arise from a shift of schedule and not the health effects of such a systematic implementation in modern culture. The early school day start enforced by the greater part of high schools in the other countries is detrimental to the education and health of students and substantially contrasts with scientific data as it limits students ability to retain and process information, damages biological sleep cycles, leads to increased likelihood for chronic stress and depression, and creates a negative learning atmosphere. High schools across the India need to immediately administer a school start of no later than 8:30 am. to counteract the destructive cycles present due to the current status of educational systems throughout the nation.
Waking your child up is often the most stressful part of the morning. Many children have trouble waking up and getting out of bed. Using light and sound can help your children to awaken and be alert. At the same time, making mornings fun can lower everyone’s stress levels. All of these techniques will help you to get your children up and ready to start the day. that teenagers’ biological clocks run later because a hormone known as melatonin, which promotes sleepiness, starts to be secreted in the brain much later than in adults. The researchers found that students’ performance in exams also went down when they sat them in the morning compared to the afternoon. Although there are many advantages to get up early but apart from that the study of how the daily routine affects the brain – said the time at which children become fully awake gets progressively later as they get older. The pattern continues until the age of 20, when it begins to reverse, making adults more alert in the mornings.
Teens would acheive more if they were allowed to have a lie-in and not start their classes until the afternoon. Teenage pupils should start school in the afternoon because making them turn up in the morning is “cruel”, making them more alert in the afternoon than in the morning. The schools which switched to later start times had experienced improved success in exams and reduced rates of truancy and depression. Because Most school regimes force teenagers to function at a time of day that is suboptimal and many university students are exposed to considerable dangers from sleep deprivation.
How many times have we heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day? There’s overwhelming evidence to suggest that it is, especially for children. Eating breakfast has been shown to improve children’s behaviour at school, and poor eating patterns can impair adolescent growth and development. This problem is worse among primary pupils, because they find it harder than secondary pupils to “fend for themselves”. The lack of food before school – or only snacking on unhealthy food – means that pupils arrive unable to concentrate and more likely to behave badly. In the short-term, eating a good quality breakfast can increase feelings of alertness and motivation to learn. Children’s high metabolic turnover and rapid growth rates mean they need optimal nutrition. They have higher demands on their glycogen (or energy) stores overnight as they sleep, and as they generally sleep longer than adults, children have a longer “fasting” time (longer time without food overnight). Therefore, eating a nutritious breakfast is especially important to provide fuel for the oxidation of glucose.
Shahid Majeed Mir hails from Misribehak Machil Kupwara and can be reached at mirshahid363@gmail.com.