Judith A. Owens, MD, MPH, at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence along with his group conducted a survey on 201 students in grades nine through 12 attending a Rhode Island high school where the class start time was changed from 8 a. m. to 8:30 a. m. for a two-month period.

They found that only half-hour delay in the start time led to a noteworthy improvement in students' mood, alertness, and motivation. The percentage of students sleeping for less than seven hours during night fell by 79.4%. Those having at least eight hours of sleep increased from 16.4% to 54.7% during the period of study. Those visiting a health care center for fatigue-related symptoms decreased from 15.3% to 4.6%.

In school days sleep duration increased by 45 minutes and average students went to bed 18 minutes late. These results were available in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Regulating school timing as per the youth is a controversial topic. Some experts say that the adolescents might go to bed later and get little sleep while others confirm the opposite.

The school faculty did not support the modification in timings in the beginning but seeing the students’ change in attitude and their performance they changed their view.