At Stamford High, all students arrive to their classes bright and early at 7:25 a.m. It’s a common scene to see high schools across the nation start school before 8 a.m., but I believe that school starts too early in the morning.

This issue isn’t just a student complaint. Yes, we dread having to get up in the morning at 6 a.m. in order to make it to school on time, but this matter is actually backed by science. According to Anne Wheaton, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “teens’ lack of sleep causes health problems such as gaining weight, acne problems, and mood swings.”

On average, we teens need between 8.5 and 9.5 hours of sleep. A lot of times students have loads of homework that just can’t be done before 10:30 p.m., which is the optimal time students should be getting to bed in order to get the right amount of sleep. Going to sleep at 11:30 p.m. and waking up at 6:00 a.m. cuts into those optimal hours of sleep, and as Wheaton puts it, “We’re fighting biology.”

According to another study from the CDC, starting school too early causes teens to lose much of our REM—or rapid eye movement—sleep. This is the type of sleep that helps teens control their moods, and could be a reason why we’re all grumpy when we meander into school every morning.

I personally despise having to wake up early every morning. Since I live close to school, I have the luxury of getting to wake up at 6:30 a.m., but still don’t get the ideal amount of sleep I need. Many students like me play a sport after school or are in a club. The extracurricular activities we do take up a lot of time after school, and then we all have to eat, shower, and finally do homework. Sometimes we’ll be up as late as 12:30 or even 1:00 a.m. doing homework due for later that day.

I understand that the later we start school the later we would get out, but I’d gladly get out of school later and get enough sleep, rather than walking like a zombie into school every morning.