Sleep expert warns 9am starts are akin to ‘torture’

Sleep expert Dr Paul Kelley believes the uni day should start at 11am to fit in with the natural human body clock.

He compared 9am starts to torture, claiming they leave your body stressed and exhausted, and risk damaging performance and even causing health problems.

Instead, Kelly called for staggered starts to the day, with younger children starting the school day as early as 8:30 and 18-year-olds as late as 11am, which he claims would boost exam results by “around 10 per cent”.

He also told the British Science Festival: “Staff should start at 10am. You don’t get back to the 9am starting point till 55. Staff are usually sleep-deprived.”

It doesn’t have to be this way

It’d be easy to write Kelley off as a soft touch, if it wasn’t for the fact he was a headteacher himself in North Tyneside, where he changed the school day from 8:30 to 10am and saw grades rise by a massive 19 per cent. That’s the difference between your shit 2.2 and the glorious 2.1 you’ve been dreaming of.

Generally the uni lifestyle isn’t one which blends well to the early start, and finally there’s some legitimate scientific evidence to suggest we’re actually doing it all wrong. It would mean a world where you didn’t have to slop down to your 9am seminar grey in the face, with garlic mayo curdling in your hair from the night before.

Gone would be the days of your eyes rolling back into your head as you try and follow PowerPoints, or looking like a dick when you physically cannot bring yourself to make small talk with your course mates at such an ungodly hour.

Instead of skipping breakfast, you’d be able to start the day off in whatever way you like and make your way to uni casually, and instead of being surrounded by people storming past you on their way to work, you’d see briefcases swinging delightedly in the air and people actually saying good morning to each other.

Dr Paul Kelley has finally said what we’ve known all along: mornings can be great when you don’t have to get out of bed early.