School start times should be put back to as late as 11am to combat a sleep-deprivation¹ crisis among young people, a scientist has suggested.

一位科学家指出，学校应当把上课时间推迟到上午11点，以应对年轻人所面临的睡眠不足危机。

Paul Kelley, of the Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute at the University of Oxford², said young people in Britain were losing on average 10 hours’ sleep a week, making them more sleep-deprived than a junior doctor on a 24-hour shift.

来自牛津大学(University of Oxford)睡眠和昼夜节律神经科学研究所(Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute )的保罗·凯利(Paul Kelley)表示，英国的年轻人平均每周损失10小时睡眠时间，这使他们比一个24小时轮班工作的实习医生更缺乏睡眠。

Speaking at the British Science Festival in Bradford on Tuesday, Prof Kelley called for an end to early starts at schools, colleges and university to “improve the lives of a generation”.

凯利教授在8日在布拉德福德(Bradford)举办的英国科学节(British Science Festival)上讲话时呼吁，学校、学院和大学取消清早上课的规定，以“改善这一代人的生活”。

He said children aged eight to 10 should start school at 8.30am or later, 16-year-olds should start at 10am and 18-year-olds at 11am.

他表示，8到10岁的儿童应该在早晨八点半或之后开始上课，16岁和18岁的青少年应该分别在上午10点和11点开始上课。

Kelley has been working with fellow Oxford neuroscientist Russell Foster and Steven Lockley of Harvard Medical School to push for a sea-change in the approach to sleep for children.

凯利教授曾与牛津大学的神经系统科学家拉塞尔·弗斯特(Russell Foster)和哈佛医学院(Harvard Medical School)的史蒂文·洛克利(Steven Lockley)共同努力推动儿童睡眠方式的一场巨变。

They have been working with the Education Endowment Foundation and the Wellcome Trust on the Teensleep project, which Kelley said was the largest study of its kind and which is aims to recruit 100 schools to trial different start times.

他们曾与教育捐助基金会(Education Endowment Foundation) 和威康信托基金(Wellcome Trust)联手共同发起了青少年睡眠（Teensleep）项目。凯利教授表示，这是此类项目中规模最大的，旨在召集100所学校来进行不同上课时间的试点。

The recommendations arise from a deeper understanding of circadian rhythms – our internal body clock, which determines optimum levels of concentration, wakefulness and work ability.

这些提议基于对昼夜节律（也就是我们内部的生物钟）更深层的认识，因为昼夜节律决定了我们的注意力、清醒状态和劳动能力何时能达到最佳水平。

“At the age of 10 you get up and go to school and it fits in with our nine-to-five lifestyle,” Kelley said. “When you are about 55 you also settle into the same pattern. But in between it changes a huge amount and, depending on your age, you really need to be starting around three hours later, which is entirely³ natural.”

凯利说：“10岁时，你每天早起去学校，这符合我们朝九晚五的生活习惯，大约55岁时你也很适应这个模式。但这中间的时期有很大的变化发生，根据你的年龄，你的确需要把上课时间往后推迟3小时，这是很正常的。”

Ignoring our natural circadian rhythms could lead to exhaustion⁴, frustration⁵, anxiety, weight gain and hyper-tension, he said, and could make a person more prone⁶ to stimulant⁷ or alcohol use and risk-taking.

他还说，忽视人体自然的昼夜节律将会引发疲惫、沮丧、焦虑、增重和高度紧张等症状，还会使人更容易服用兴奋剂、饮酒以及冒险。

“This is a huge issue for society,” Kelley said. “We are generally a sleep-deprived society but the 14-24 age group is more sleep-deprived than any other sector⁸ of society. This causes serious threats to health, mood performance and mental health.”

凯利说：“这对社会来说是个不小的问题。当今社会，我们普遍都缺乏睡眠，但年龄14到24岁的人群比任何其他年龄段的人都更缺乏睡眠。这会严重威胁人们的健康、情绪表现和精神健康。”

If schools across the UK adopted the new start times, he said, GCSE attainment⁹ would rise by about 10%.

他说，如果英国的学校都采用这个新的上课时间，那么获得普通中等教育证书(GCSE)的人数将会上涨约10%。

The problem goes beyond merely feeling tired, Kelley said. If a child gets less than six hours sleep a night, over the course of a week this can lead to more than 700 changes in the way their genes¹⁰ behave.

凯利说，问题不仅仅是会觉得疲惫。如果一个儿童每晚的睡眠时间少于6小时，这样持续一周，将会导致基因行为方式发生700多个变化。

Similar changes are not seen in children who get eight-and-a-half hours sleep a night. He said illnesses as serious as schizophrenia often developed at an age associated with the beginnings of sleep deprivation problems.

同样的变化却不会发生在每晚睡8.5小时的儿童上。他说，像精神分裂症这种严重疾病的发病年龄通常与睡眠不足问题开始的年龄有关。

Kelley said every governing body of every school in the UK had the power to alter start times if they wish. He conceded that later school starts might be problematic for working parents, but added: “The interesting thing is that parents usually support this. All the studies show that later start times improve family life, travel times are shorter, it’s safer for children to travel to school.”

凯利说，英国每个学校的管理部门都有权利修改开始上课的时间，如果他们愿意这么做的话。他承认，推迟上课时间可能会给工作的父母带来一些问题，但又补充道：“但有趣之处就在于，家长们倒普遍支持这一改变。各项研究都表明，推迟上课时间可以改善家庭生活，出行时间缩短了，孩子们去上学的路上也更安全。”

Guy Meadows, a sleep physiologist¹¹ at the Sleep School in London, agreed there was a problem that needed tackling. He said: “British children are among the most sleep-deprived in the world. There was a recent study which looked at 900,000 children globally. The US was top and Britain came sixth. Sleep is vitally important for children, and it’s when they develop mentally, physically¹² and emotionally.”

伦敦睡眠学校(Sleep School)的睡眠生理学家盖伊·梅多斯(Guy Meadows)也同意，我们需要解决这个问题。他说：“英国儿童现在是全世界儿童中最缺乏睡眠的人群之一。最近有一项研究调查了全球90万名儿童的睡眠缺乏状况，其中美国位列第一，英国位列第六。睡眠对儿童来说至关重要，这是他们智力、体力和情绪发育的时期。”

He said families had a key role to play in ensuring children get enough sleep. In school sessions aimed at teaching children how to improve their sleep, Meadows said, 96% of participants said they used a phone or mobile device in the last 30 minutes before sleep.

他说，家庭在确保儿童得到足够睡眠上起着重要作用。在学校教授孩子改善睡眠质量的课程中，梅多斯说，96%的参与者表示，他们曾在睡前30分钟使用手机或移动设备。

“We’re finding that children have phones or tablet from the age of about 10 or 11. These devices emit light which mimics¹³ the light from the sun and they essentially¹⁴ trick our brains into thinking we should be active, not winding¹⁵ down for sleep, and that interferes¹⁶ with our circadian rhythms,” he said.

他表示：“我们发现，很多儿童在10岁或11岁左右时就有了手机或平板电脑。这些设备发出的光亮模拟太阳光，这使我们的大脑误以为我们应当保持活跃状态，而不是放松下来，准备睡觉，这也干扰了我们的昼夜节律。”