SHIFT WORK & SCHOOLWORK ur natural sleep needs, school schedules, and job requirements are often at odds. Asa result, schoolkids and shift workers alike can stagger under a burden of sleeplessness that damages their health, A hundred years ago, American high schools opened their doors around 9 a.m. Today, the average start time is 8 a.m,, with a third beginning even earlier. Dazed teenagers attempting to make the schoo! bus need to drag them- selves out of bed in the predawn hours, and this is exactly the population that shouldn't have to get up so early. Adolescents, as we have seen, don't just need eight to 10 hours of sleep—their body clocks are also naturally skewed toward later hours. For teens, get- ting up at 6 a.m. is equivalent to asking adults to rise at 4 a.m. Sleep-deprived teens are unhealthy and unsafe. Novice drivers already have a high crash risk, and sleeplessness increases the danger. Suicidal thoughts, aggression, and bullying are also connected to sleep deprivation in adolescents. And, naturally, school- work suffers when teenagers are too tired to concentrate, in 2017, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine called on all school districts to delay middle and high school start times to 8:30 a.m. or later. It's not an easy change, given Parental work schedules, school bus availability, and after-school activities, but as later start times ‘are catching on around the country, the effects have been impressive. Students whose start times were ‘moved past 8 a.m. reported feeling less sleepy and more attentive during the day. Academic scores improved, sometimes dramatically. In 2019, California became the first state to mandate such a change statewide for both middle and high schools, As tough as early school hours can be, shift work may be even worse. About 15 percent of US. workers follow erratic schedules. Doctors, nurses, factory workers, truck drivers, and many others often work long hours or varying shifts, beginning and ending at different times on different days. This puts their lives into conflict with their body clocks: Just when their brain is sending out its melatonin message to fall asleep, nighttime shift workers have to be at their most alert. Asa result, only 63 percent of shift workers say they get enough sleep. The resulting exhaustion is officially known as shift work disorder. The Minnesota Makeover In the 1990s, schools in Edina and Minneapolis, Minnesota, were among the earliest to push back high school start times. After shifting openings bback more than an hour to 8:30 a.m. (in Edina) and 8:40 a.m. (in Minneap- olis), students notched substantial gains. Attendance, tardiness, graduation rates, and behavior improved: grade point averages climbed. Students were more alert in first-period classes and fewer visited the schoo! nurse for illness o stress. The extra morn- ing hour seems to have been the deciding factor. Teens reported unchanged bedtimes of around 11:30 p.m., but woke up later, on Shift work may even increase the risk for cancer. Women who work shifts have a 30 to 60 percent higher incidence of breast cancer, with the highest numbers among ‘those who have these schedules the longest. Shift work has also been linked to prostate, uterine, and colon cancers. In 2019, a work- ing group of scientists from 16 coun- tries classified night shift work as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” What to do? Short of finding a new job, night shift workers are encouraged to get the best day- time sleep they can manage. The advice is practical: Keep toa sched- ule even on weekends, wear an eye mask and earplugs to sleep, and avoid caffeine and alcohol close to bedtime, whenever that may be. ©