The is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Small financial incentives can get college students to go to bed earlier and sleep significantly longer. That’s what my colleagues and I found through an that involved 508 students at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Oxford.

When the students were offered $7.50 per night Monday through Thursday – a total of $30 per week – to sleep longer, they were 13% more likely than those who were not offered the incentive to sleep seven to nine hours. They were also 16% less likely to sleep fewer than six hours.

We collected data from wearable activity trackers, surveys and time-use diaries. The people to whom the incentives were offered were chosen randomly from the group of people who agreed to be part of the study.

The incentives were offered for three weeks, but the effects lasted even after they were removed. Specifically, those who had initially gotten the incentives were still 9% more likely to sleep seven to nine hours per night for up to six weeks after students stopped receiving them. This suggests the effects of the incentives may last for several weeks.

The time-use diaries documented a reduction in screen time. That is, students spent less time watching TV and videos or using smart devices during the experiment. There was no evidence of a decline in time spent studying or in time spent socializing. This suggests students gave up screen time rather than time with friends to get to bed earlier and sleep longer.

Why it matters

Sleep deprivation has been as a . It can have , decision-making and productivity. Our findings shine light on what it takes to get people to adopt better sleeping habits and avoid these negative outcomes.

Sleep deprivation is a big problem among college students. Most college students the .

Good sleep is associated with . Sleep deprivation and poor sleep quality have been linked to .

Since college often marks the first time young adults may find themselves fully in charge of their schedules, they could benefit from help or incentives to form good sleep habits.

indicate that many people feel they are . When people experience a night of poor sleep, the effects are felt the next day.

Our results suggest that just knowing about the benefits of good sleep is not enough for people to actually adopt better sleeping habits. Rather, it may take incentives.

Interventions that help individuals form routines, such as reduced screen time, may have longer-lasting effects.

What is still unknown

A relevant question is whether similar people can be motivated to get better sleep without monetary incentives and with less costly nudges.

What’s next

In the future, we plan to explore whether interventions to improve sleep habits during college may also help students boost their academic performance. We’d also like to examine whether these interventions can work with different populations and in different places.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

After long-standing research showed the devastating impact of early classes on teens’ health, California’s district middle schools will start no earlier than 8 am; and high schools will start no later than 8:30 am. Rural district schools are exempted from the state mandate. 

Now, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and the Virgin Islands legislators are now considering mandated school start time changes. 

The California , passed in 2019, was debated for its effect on all students, parents, and teachers — but not without qualms over how it would disrupt families’ schedules and create other problems. 

 Cindy Velasco, a working California parent with two high school kids, said she supported the later start time law for several reasons, including the difficulty of juggling dropping off her kids for early classes and getting to work on time.  

“It’s difficult for parents because our work day starts earlier,” Velasco said. “Having to take my kids to school later is difficult for me. I had to rely on my family to help my daughter get to school.”

Most important, Velasco said, was the negative effect on learning she saw early classes had on her children.  

Researchers who have been investigating the issue for years agree. 

“The school start time, when it’s early, is crushing adolescent sleep,” said Mary Carskadon, director of sleep research and chronobiology at Bradley Hospital in Rhode Island.

“When school starts very early, they [early teenagers] end up kind of stuck because they are biologically unable to sleep early,” said Carskadon, who has studied sleep and circadian rhythms for decades.

“If they have to get up at 5:30 to 6 a.m. to go to school, they can’t fall asleep at 9 or 10 p.m. to get even 8 hours of sleep, which isn’t enough sleep for these early teenagers.”

Kyla Wahlstrom, a professor of education administration policy at the University of Minnesota, who  researches school start times, said the brains of kids who are getting up as early as 6:30 a.m. to get to school starting at 8 a.m. “are still in sleep mode.” 

“There’s all this constellation of good outcomes — less depression, less drug use, less cigarette and alcohol use, less premarital sex…when there is a later starting time for the students to get to school, which gives them more sleep in the morning,” Wahlstrom said, adding other outcomes, including performing better at school and involved in less car accidents.

Troy Flint, the chief information officer of the California School Boards Association, said the CSBA opposed the law when it was being debated in the state legislature, in part, because of the “tremendous hardship for many families that had inflexible work schedules or that needed the student to work for financial reasons … siblings who have childcare responsibilities.”

Flint said the California School Boards Association, which represents about 900 schools districts and county offices of education in California, did not oppose the law to change school start times “in concept.”

“What we opposed was the universal mandate which required every school district to adopt the law regardless of individual situation,” Flint said.

Research on school start times — and their effect on students — started in the 1990s as school districts across the country implemented later classes. 

Earlier this year, New Jersey State Senator Vin Gopal (D) and Assemblyman Craig J. Coughlin (D) introduced two in the Legislature to move the start times for high schools no earlier  than 8:30am beginning in the 2024-25 school year. 

 â€œThere’s no real timeline. We’re still having conversations with stakeholders,” said Gopal’s policy director Micharel Illiano. “We are trying to make sure we are being cautious and responsible and not moving too quickly.”

 New Jersey School Boards Association spokesperson Janet Bamford said the organization does not support a state mandate for school start times, and that the decision should be made locally because of the “hurdles to implementing later start times.”

Bamford cited “the potential for increased transportation costs, difficulty in scheduling after-school activities, unintended impacts on other students — particularly elementary school children — and programs, and disruption to family schedules.” 

In New York, State Assembly member Harvey Epstein and State Senator Robert Jackson in 2021 that would require all New York state public schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.

“The bill is taking a long time … I don’t know the timeline” said Epstein. “This is a conversation around health and safety because we know the science, the medical data is there, and I think we need to educate people about how important it is.”

Massachusetts and the are also considering state mandated later school start times.

When her interviews run late in the winter months, the sun is already setting over the Pacific, less than two miles away. Her walk home takes at least 20 minutes on “busy and chaotic streets,” and she doesn’t feel safe taking shortcuts through alleys.Ěý

“It can be annoying when it’s dark and I’m walking home, or if I have to wait for someone to pick me up, I feel uncomfortable standing there,” said the ninth grader. “If it’s still light out, that’s a positive for me.”

Woodrick, like many teens, says permanent daylight saving time would better accommodate her busy life and brushes off concerns about getting up for school in the dark. And if the U.S. House embraces the idea as enthusiastically as the Senate, the nation could soon see the end of its annual spring forward/fall back ritual.

On March 15, the Senate unanimously passed the , which would go into effect in November 2023. Proponents, including the bill’s sponsor, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, say the change would reduce crime, prevent childhood obesity and boost . Senate education Chair Patty Murray of Washington voiced her enthusiasm during a in November.

“It’s crazy that every fall we interrupt everybody’s sleep schedule,” she said. “Nobody knows what time it is for weeks on end after that, and it’s dark at 4:30 [p.m.] in my state.”

It’s unclear how quickly the House will take up the bill.  Following an energy and commerce subcommittee earlier this month, Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat who chairs the full committee, said he hopes lawmakers can soon “end the silliness of the current system.” But some members, including Rep. Pramila Jayapal — also of Washington — that permanent daylight saving time is the way to go. 

Dave Dougherty, executive director of the National High School Athletic Coaches Association, said he hopes the House takes more time to consider other perspectives.Ěý 

“One of the biggest challenges is kids who are overly tired and have not gotten enough rest,” he said. “It’s complicated. It’s more than a simple fix.”

Sleep researchers agree ending the biannual clock adjustment makes sense, but disagree about how: Adolescents, they say, need more daylight in the morning, not the evening — the reason why there’s been in recent years to start high school classes later. The U.S. tried permanent daylight saving time in the 1970s to save energy, but the law because people didn’t like getting up before sunrise.

“We may shift the time of day, but our internal clocks are still responsive to morning light,” said Wendy Troxel, a behavioral and social scientist and sleep medicine specialist at the RAND Corp. She said the Senate the research in making their decision. “More and summer barbecues sound delightful, but think about December.”

In puberty, adolescents’ shift. It’s harder for them to wind down at 8 or 9 p.m., and they might not get drowsy until 10 or 11 p.m. Many teens already don’t get and some research shows get less than their white peers. Inadequate sleep has also been linked to anxiety, anger and depression.Ěý

With reports that the pandemic has contributed to , experts say a permanent switch to standard time would be a healthier option.Ěý

“We’ll have a bunch of zombied out people in the mornings,” said Dr. Rafael Pelayo, a sleep specialist and clinical professor at Stanford University, predicting the need for artificial light boxes, more warning signs at crosswalks and police on the streets.

The ‘ability to wake up’

Pelayo is on the board of r, a national organization that advocates for pushing start times back for older students to 8:30 a.m. — often an hour later than many high schools start now. Districts in 46 states have made the shift, and California passed , going into effect this fall, that delays start times to at least 8 a.m for middle school and 8:30 a.m. for high school.Ěý

Terra Ziporyn Snider, the organization’s executive director, said it’s likely more states could follow California’s lead if the bill becomes law. Legislation this session is on its way to Gov. Kathy Hochul and has been introduced in and .Ěý

Research shows from pushing start times to at least 8:30 a.m., Troxel said, and allowing teens more time to snooze already has bipartisan support. Rubio has endorsed , and progressive Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York she’s still angry that her high school’s trigonometry and pre-calculus classes started at 7:20 a.m.Ěý

But year-round daylight saving time “would work against later school start times,” especially in northern regions of the country and on the western edges of time zones, where the sun rises later, said Dr. Beth Malow, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University.Ěý

“I honestly think legislators don’t understand it,” Malow said. “Kids will be going to school in the dark. That affects their getting enough sleep and their ability to wake up and be alert for school.”

The Congressional push has yet to meet with concerted opposition from educators or their advocates in Washington. The National PTA, the nation’s two largest teachers unions and the National School Boards Association support efforts to make .

‘One more cup of coffee’

If the bill becomes law, students say they’ll adjust.Ěý

Sara Falluji, a junior at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington. Kentucky, thinks more light in the evening will benefit — not harm — students’ moods.

“Students are inside the school building for seven to eight hours on average,” she said. “That means minimal time spent outside, something that is really important for the mental and physical health of students.”

She also sees an upside for young drivers. Driving to school before sunup can help teens with learner’s permits clock the required number of nighttime driving hours, she said.

In general, however, teens are thinking about what they’ll be able to do after school with more daylight.Ěý

Raima Dutt, another Kentucky student, plays golf, a fall sport. She agreed she’d prefer to have more light at the end of the day.Ěý

“As the season goes on, we have to rush our practices and games to finish before the sun sets,” said the sophomore at duPont Manual High School in Louisville. She added that darkness at dinner time makes her feel rushed in the evenings.

Devin Walton, a ninth-grader at South High School in Torrance, California, likes science and said he doesn’t have a hard time paying attention in biology, his first class of the day. He’s also a runner and has track meets that can stretch into the early evening.Ěý

“I would feel pressure to leave work and rush home to make sure he’s not riding his bike or walking home in the dark,” said his mother Krystal Walton. “I feel like it’s just one hour. We might make one more cup of coffee.”

When parents tell Denise Pope, an adolescent well-being expert, they’re worried for their children’s mental health, she responds with a question.

“How many hours are they sleeping?”

That catches many parents off guard, says Pope, co-founder of the Stanford University-affiliated nonprofit Challenge Success. Few see their teenage children’s mental health as linked to their sleep schedules. And besides, most parents go to bed before their high school-aged kids anyway, right? When Pope points out that teenagers need about nine hours of sleep each night, many parents scoff.

They shouldn’t.

As concerns for youth depression, anxiety and suicide have skyrocketed amid a deadly pandemic that disrupted schools across the country and isolated teens from their friends, researchers agree that consistent, sweet slumber can go a long way toward making students feel better.

In recent years, school leaders have highlighted that quality sleep is an important precondition for academic success, helping young people pay attention and retain material. In a 2019 effort to safeguard rest for teens, California pushed back school start times for middle and high school students statewide. But the mental benefits extend far beyond learning, experts say, emphasizing sleep as a key to healthy emotional regulation for young people.

By way of explanation, Pope offers a metaphor, which she credits to psychologist Lisa Demour.

“If you had sort of a magic pill that you could take that would help increase your mental health, increase your physical health, lower your stress, make you more efficient,” she says, most people would be itching for a dose.

Well, we do have that magic pill. “It’s called sleep,” says Pope.

But according to her research, teens are skimping on this vital resource, and the problem has only worsened with COVID-19.

In fall 2020, Pope’s Challenge Success team joined with NBC to on their well-being and academic engagement through the pandemic. They found that high schoolers were getting an average of 6.7 hours of sleep per night — well below the recommended nine-hour benchmark, which only 7 percent of students were hitting. Five percent of students regularly slept under four hours per night, the research team found.

Even though remote school eliminated commutes for many students, 43 percent of high schoolers reported that they were sleeping less since the pandemic struck, compared to only 23 who reported sleeping more. Anecdotal accounts indicate that quarantine spurred many teens to , and using naps as a coping mechanism when they started to spiral.

“My sleep schedule really went off the rails when the pandemic started,” Bridgette Adu-Wadier, now a senior at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ. During the day, on top of attending classes, she had to keep an eye on her two younger brothers, first- and second-graders who would constantly interrupt her with quarrels over toys, requests for help with schoolwork and messes to clean up in the kitchen.

Distracted days meant she frequently had to log late nights working to complete a never-ending stream of assignments. Sometimes, she would find herself nodding off while working. “It was just really hard managing my time with all the things that I had to juggle,” said Adu-Wadier.

The Virginia high schooler has not been alone. Students in a tricky AP course she’s enrolled in share a group chat, and on nights before assignments are due, messages buzz into the wee hours of the morning as peers scramble to finish. In the mornings, some of her friends can’t drag themselves out of bed for online class. Throughout this year, peers “definitely were in a similar boat,” says Adu-Wadier.

At the same time, isolation and worries for COVID-19 have exacerbated levels of teen stress and anxiety nationwide. Between April and October 2020, the share of mental health-related emergency department visits . Over 1 in 5 teenagers surveyed by EdWeek Research Center in April said , compared to less than 1 in 10 who said it went down.

Based on increased demand for behavioral health services over the past four months, Colorado Children’s Hospital on May 25 declared a . The hospital’s chief medical officer said the situation is more severe than anything he has seen in his 20 years of practice.

Though experts say it’s , parents of teens who took their own lives say that the circumstances of quarantine contributed to their children’s desperate condition.

Susanne Button, a clinical psychologist who directs high school programming for the Jed Foundation, an organization dedicated to preventing youth suicide, is especially worried for LGBTQ+ youth. Queer and trans teens struggled with high rates of suicidal ideation even before the pandemic, she says, and in the past year, many have been forced to .

Working with such students, Button emphasizes the importance of good sleep hygiene.

“You can’t sleep off some of these stressors, but you certainly can link sleep into resilience,” she told ĂŰĚŇÓ°ĘÓ. “Adequate sleep for teenagers stabilizes mood and reduces irritability and depression.”

“Adolescents who don’t have enough sleep tend to actually engage in more high-risk behavior when they don’t feel mentally calm or happy,” continued Button. “Adolescents who get enough sleep tend to make better decisions and be less impulsive around risk-taking when they’re feeling stressed or distressed.”

But for students like Adu-Wadier, budgeting time to rest can be a challenge. She knows her well-being and mental health took a hit through much of the past year — she sometimes lacked patience, felt irritable and snapped at family members because she was over-tired — but it can be hard to find time to snooze when assignments are piling up, she says.

“[Sleep] ends up taking a backseat.” For many peers, she explained, the choice is a simple cost-benefit calculus: “They’ll feel tired, but at least they won’t be failing a class.”

In such cases, Pope of Challenge Success suggests a compromise. Every week, try to push bedtime just a few minutes earlier.

“Don’t let yourself look at that extra TikTok video, don’t stay up for the news, whatever it is. Just try to move that needle by 15 minutes at a time.”

Screen use before bed is something parents ought to monitor, Pope says. A mother herself, she’s had to institute a no-devices-at-night rule for her kids.

“Parenting needs to change as technology changes,” Pope says.

Of course, many youth live in conditions where it can be tricky to cultivate friendly sleeping conditions. Perhaps they’re staying with relatives or in a homeless shelter. Still, even small changes can help, says Pope, who recommends earplugs and sleep masks to mute outside stimuli.

As for Adu-Wadier, the long hours she logged studying for high-level courses have paid off. This spring, she earned admission to study at Northwestern University on a full scholarship.

On the night she got the good news, the college-bound senior didn’t stay up late celebrating. Instead, she tucked herself in at 10:30 p.m.

“I just went straight to bed,” Adu-Wadier remembers. “I didn’t spend a ton of time trying to do assignments or work on college applications because I didn’t need to do any more college applications. So I just attempted to go to sleep.”

Whether it was the news from Northwestern or a full night’s rest, the next day had a certain shine to it.

“I woke up feeling a lot different,” said Adu-Wadier. “It’s a very great feeling.”