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Comment by hstan4 | Hacker News Reader

Is waking up prior to 9am really considered torturous? Go to sleep by midnight and you still get 9 hours of sleep, that’s not half bad.

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I don’t know. My schools first period was 7:50, but that meant we’d normally have to wake up around 5:45 in order to get ready for the bus, which came by our house around 6:45.

A two hour period from waking to being in first period seemed pretty normal, and even if you subtract that from a “more generous” 9am, you still get 7am, which is pretty brutal on adolescents which are known to have shifted sleep schedules.

What on earth were you doing for an hour in the morning?! Even today I can be out the door in 20 minutes and forget it, as a teen I probably could do it in 7.

That is also, I think, an abnormally long bus trip, but maybe that's my bias.

I'm guessing you weren't a female teenager.

I had a very similar schedule to the person you're responding to, except our high school started at 7:25. I'd take a little extra time in the morning just to get my head together before going to school.

We lived right on the border with the neighboring school district, so I was one of the first kids on the bus. The school was only fifteen minutes away but my bus ride was 45-50 minutes one way, and the bus got to the school with 10 minutes to spare before the first period.

So maybe not typical but definitely believable for me. There are probably some kids in almost every district that have to get on the bus an hour before school starts.

I had the same situation: I was so extremely tired when getting up at 6 that I basically needed an hour to eat cereal and shower.

* wake up

* be really tired (5 min)

* take shower (10)

* get dressed (5)

* eat breakfast (10)

* walk to bus stop (takes 15-20 min, sometimes my parents would drive me)

* buffer

> Go to sleep by midnight and you still get 9 hours of sleep

Assuming you can fall asleep at midnight, sure.

A lot of that is sleep hygiene. People rarely had issues falling asleep early before electrification. And we’ve made it even worse with TV, computers and smartphones. Being very conscious of light consumption and turning off devices several hours before sleep makes it pretty easy to fall asleep earlier.

I’m one of those people who normally can’t fall asleep before midnight and struggles to wake up early, but I’ve done a few digital detox programs where I’m without any electronic devices, and I’m always amazed at how quickly I fall into a schedule where I’m asleep before 9 and waking up at 4:30. And it’s also amazing how much better I feel both mentally and physically when I’m on that schedule.

In my opinion teenagers need time for entertainment and socialization. When adults do it it's normal but when kids do it it's "TV bad, computer bad, smartphone bad".

If you assume 8 hours per day for school, maybe one extra to get to/from school then homework and house chores, how much time does that leave for entertainment?

No wonder kids stay up until very late because that's the only time they actually have for themselves to do something they actually enjoy and is not being forced upon them.

If you have to ask, I'm afraid it would be very difficult to explain. It's not necessarily about sleep duration.

> Is waking up prior to 9am really considered torturous

It certainly was given the default sleep schedule I had as a teen.

> Go to sleep by midnight

This wasn't something I could intentionally choose to do as a teenager without the use of drugs like melatonin.

9 hours of sleep every night?? I'd be happy with 6 or 7. But I'll need a full-time housekeeping staff and a personal assistant, to cook, wash dishes, clean the house, wash clothes, take care of house stuff, pay bills, go grocery shopping, and everything required for even a basic lifestyle, etc.

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