21 Jun If High School Students Are Naturally Owls, Shouldn’t School Start Later?

Posted at 19:46h in Author Interviews, Brigham & Women's - Harvard, Education, PLoS, Sleep Disorders by

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Dorothee Fischer
Department of Environmental Health
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
Center for Injury Epidemiology, Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety
Hopkinton, Massachusetts,

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Chronotypes are a result of how the circadian clock embeds itself into the 24h light-dark cycle, producing earlier and later individuals (“larks and owls”) with regards to rhythms in physiology, cognition and behavior, including sleep.

It can be beneficial for health and safety to sync forced wake times (work, school) with individual chronotypes, thereby reducing the misalignment between sleep, circadian rhythms and external demands.

To better inform potential interventions such as tailored work schedules, more information is needed about the prevalence of different chronotypes and how chronotype differs by age and sex.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first large-scale and nationally representative study of chronotypes in the US.

MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?

Response: People can differ largely in when they feel tired and alert, when they fall asleep and wake up. These differences are both a challenge and an opportunity in a 24/7-society, where we have increasing numbers of people working at night and in rotational shifts. We may be able to do better than “one size fits all”- approaches when it comes to scheduling work and importantly, school.

Based on our findings, high school students are on average the latest chronotypes in society and delaying school start times may be a simple and effective way to improve their sleep and circadian alignment.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?

Response: We need more large-scale, longitudinal studies to examine individual chronotype trajectories over time: what factors determine how much chronotype changes with increasing age? To what extent are these changes in chronotype attributable to environmental vs. biological influences?

MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.

Citation:
Dorothee Fischer, David A. Lombardi, Helen Marucci-Wellman, Till Roenneberg. Chronotypes in the US – Influence of age and sex. PLOS ONE, 2017; 12 (6): e0178782 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178782

Note: Content is Not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care provider regarding your specific medical condition and questions.

 

 

 

Last Updated on June 21, 2017 by Marie Benz MD FAAD

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