Next year Portsmouth High School will be starting approximately one hour later.  This will have drastically negative effects on our students. Leaving school one hour later in the winter will be sending students and student athletes into what will be the beginning of our sunset.  Leaving for school in the dark and going home in the dark will destroy students motivation, ability to learn and their overall attitudes.  Scientific studies show the extreme negative affects of little to no UV on humans.

Studies show that without UV radiation, human bodies are not able to produce enough vitamin D to support ourselves.  Vitamin D is made inside the human body from the food we digest, but ample sunlight is a key component to produce the vitamin.  Without Vitamin D, our bodies are only steps away from disastrous failure.  Vitamin D is used to grow our skeletal system and we often cannot support muscle growth without it either.  Muscles and bones are literally what make up our bodies.  Without vitamin D we could not live.  While vitamin D is similar to a human “Miracle Grow,” it is also a protective barrier.  Immune systems need vitamin D in order to function the way they need to.  This is often why there is a “cold season;”  our immune systems, especially in New England are more at risk in the winter.  Vitamin D is also widely known to prevent many kinds of organ cancers.  There are few and far between vitamins that are so essential to our human survival

There is a widely accepted fact that people who see more sun are happier by nature.  Vitamin D plays a huge role in this.  When our bodies are exposed to UV radiation, we make vitamin D.  When vitamin D is made inside us, our pineal gland inside our brain begins to release tryptamines.  Tryptamines are a chemical commonly associated with dopamine.  When these chemicals are released they begin to improve our mood, or make us happy.  Sunlight actually has an addictive quality on the brain.  This is implemented for our survival.  Humans are meant to spend more time outside and in the sun to release tryptamines and dopamine which improve our overall human health.  Without this release, it is easy for people living in extreme winters, like New Hampshire, to become depressed.  Depression leads to a bad mood, which lead to lack of motivation.  Is it not easy to see how quickly a later school starting time will backfire?

Lack of sunlight can do more than just spiral you into depression and sickness.  Being in nature and the sun is how your body manages your internal clock.  Although humans can not tell the time by looking at the sun, our animal instincts can.  When the sun sets and rises lets your body know how to manage its Circadian cycle, or widely known as a “sleep cycle”.  Humans Circadian rhythm tells our body very important things, including when to sleep.  Humans who see less and less of the sun are more likely to develop symptoms of insomnia.  Ample sunlight exposure will increase melatonin as the sun begins to go down, (example of a functioning Circadian cycle).  

So instead of students purely collapsing out of mental fatigue and mild depression, one day schools will realize humans need to be in nature and then we can fall asleep from natural causes.  Having a flawed Circadian rhythm will also harshly affect how well our bodies can release hormones along with other important bodily functions.  Studies done by the “Sun is Life” foundation show all of this.

Along with the severe health issues students will face with this military-like schedule change, students will begin to fail where they have never failed before.  Along with the serious mental illness prone to occur without exposure to sunlight, students will not be able to think as clearly.  A study done by “Science Learning Hub”  shows that sun deprivation leads to cognitive impairment in people as young as teenagers.  In another scientific study, even small amounts of  sunlight exposure substantially increased participant’s alertness and thinking ability.  Increased alertness was due to increased activity in part of the brain called the thalamus. Wavelengths of light, only found in natural lighting directly affect the activity of brain structures that control things like alertness and long term focus. Scientists have agreed, there is no coincidence that receptors in the brain focused on complex planning and forming new memories are based around having enough vitamin D.  Humans were meant to thrive in nature, not a luminescent classroom.  Our learning should be based on the world around us that we so desperately need to nourish, not textbooks and screens.  When will the school realize we are not zombies?

Between the drastic health setbacks, thrown off sleep cycles, and the beginnings of serious mental illness, Portsmouth High School will begin to feel like a slave-ship.  The bottom line is humans need sunlight to stay healthy. So where is the logic in making a schedule where students will go months without proper sunlight?  Where is the logic in making student athletes practice well into the night?  Many students like myself share the same concerns on the preposterous schedule change.  The school board needs to benefit the students.  We need a schedule that will benefit us.

“Specialists Tracking How Brain Reacts to UV Light in Tanning Study.” 

“Positive and negative effects of UV.” 

“Why Avoiding Sun Will Kill You: 15 Proven Science-Based Health Benefits of Sun.”