8:30 a.m. classes are detrimental to student health 

Morning classes may seem like an opportunity to jump-start your day, but these early classes could be hurting you more than you know

Categorically, we are either early birds or night owls. Depending on our circadian chronotype — our body’s preference for periods of sleep and wakefulness — we either find ourselves being most productive and energized during the daytime or the night and we attempt to plan our classes accordingly.  

Early birds might actively seek out 8:30 a.m. classes, while night owls thrive during afternoon and evening classes. Many of us would like to be early birds to achieve the ideal student standard as typically portrayed through student influencers on social media. However, being an early riser can have detrimental consequences for our health.  

As we age, the body's natural clock controlling our sleep-wake cycle shifts; this internal clock is our circadian rhythm. For young adults, the circadian rhythm can shift forward two to four hours compared to an adult's circadian rhythm. As a result, we tend to wake up later in the day and go to bed later than the socially accepted time. However, we do not intentionally follow these irregular hours; we are just adjusting to natural changes in our body's circadian rhythm.   

With our biological clocks urging us to sleep and wake up later in the day, reprogramming our innate behaviours can feel like a challenge — because we are not meant to. Generally, young adults do not experience sleepiness until after 10 p.m., meaning that depending on when we fall asleep, we receive less than eight hours of sleep before attending that 8:30 a.m. class. For students who commute, 8:30 a.m. classes pose even greater risks as they must compromise hours of sleep to attend morning classes. 

Many students may believe that they can catch up on their missed sleep during reading week or winter break as they are officially finished the semester. However, a study conducted by Dr. Steven Lockley and his team, in the division of sleep medicine at Harvard University Medical School, found that the constant deprivation from eight hours of sleep per night causes unrecoverable sleep loss.

According to the study, once there is a systematic lack of sleep not only does academic performance decline, but health risks, including obesity and symptoms of depression, also increase.   

Another study, by a team at the University of Rochester Medical Center, found that early school start times place students at greater risk of experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression due to compromised sleep quality.   

In contrast, later start times allow us to achieve proper rapid eye movement and non-rapid eye movement sleep, both of which are important for brain development and can contribute to better grades, critical thinking, problem-solving, and improved mood. By eliminating early start times, class attendance is likely to increase and students are less likely to be prone to substance abuse.  

Students cannot go to bed earlier to attend an early class; our circadian rhythm is programmed against it. As a result, early courses lead to less and poorer quality sleep, posing detrimental short and long-term implications for our health.  

For students, the benefits of later morning classes outweigh the cons. By scheduling classes at 8:30 a.m., universities continue to place their students in unfavourable situations, especially with mandatory morning courses, causing more harm than good.