Oxford Scientist Confirms Starting Work, School before 10 AM is Torture

A sleep scientist has claimed that forcing people to start work before 10am is torture which can leave their body stressed and exhausted due to sleep deprivation.

 Paul Kelley, an honorary clinical research fellow at Oxford University's Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute said, "We’ve got a sleep-deprived society. It is hugely damaging on the body’s systems because you are affecting physical emotional and performance systems in the body.".

According to Dr Kelley, moving school times could raise grades by 10 per cent. During his stint as a head teacher at Monkseaton Middle School in North Tyneside in 2009, Dr Kelley moved the school start day from 8.30 am to 10 am and found that starting an hour later improved grades in core subjects by 19%. 

"This is a huge society issue," Dr Kelley told the British Science a Festival in Bradford. "Staff should start at 10am. You don't get back to (the 9am) starting point till 55. Staff are usually sleep-deprived. We've got a sleep-deprived society.

"It is hugely damaging on the body's systems because you are affecting physical, emotional and performance systems in the body.

 "Your liver and your heart have different patterns and you're asking them to shift two or three hours. This is an international issue. Everybody is suffering and they don't have to.

"We cannot change out 24-hour rhythms. You cannot learn to get up at a certain time. Your body will be attuned to sunlight and you're not conscious of it because it reports to hypothalamus, not sight.

"This applies in the bigger picture to prisons and hospitals. They wake up people and give people food they don't want. You're more biddable because you're totally out of it. Sleep deprivation is a torture."

Sleep deprivation can create a lot of health problems including an increased risk of substance abuse, depression, and a higher risk of obesity.