Sleep early and get all your A's :)

America is raising kids that are sleep-deprived, with only 20% getting the recomended 9 hours of sleep on school nights and more than 25% dozing off in class.

Many are arriving late to school because of oversleeping and others are driving drowsy, according to a poll released by the National Sleep Foundation.

Basically, the competition between the natural tendency to fall asleep late and waking up early due to early school start times causes a teen's sleep to lose out.

6th graders were found to be sleeping an average of 8.4 hours on school nights and 12th graders just 6.9 hours.

In addition, some 51% of adolescent drivers have been on the road why drowsy, as shown in the figure above.

Four-fifths of the students who get the recommended amount of sleep are getting A's and B's in school, in comparison with those students who are sleep-deprived.

This is because sleep serves not only as a restorative function for adolescents' bodies and brains, but it is also a key time when they process what they've learned during the day.

Citations:

Drowsy Teens Dosing Off at School, On the Road - Associated Press (2006)