Sleepytime

Reminder that there is a monthly drawing for a $25 gift card. All you have to do to get your name in the drawing is post a response to any September blog by October 1st,making sure to leave your name or email address so we can contact you if you win. You don't have to be a member of NCCS to respond. Gift cards are from your choice of: Publix, WalMart, Olive Garden-Red Lobster, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.
*********

Last year, most of my blogs were related to understanding and then teaching academic subjects. If you have questions about those areas, see one of the posts done in academic year 2009-2010 in the Archive section.

In this entry, I'd like to talk briefly about the importance of sleep. I want to encourage every parent to do two things in regards to sleep. First, I want you to make sure that you YOURSELF are getting enough sleep. Our lives are quite harried. The internet has made it even easier to spend long hours into the night doing something very important. We know it is very important because we spend long hours doing it, and we're willing to spend long hours doing it because it is very important. That's what is known as circular reasoning. It's a mental trap from which one finds it difficult to be sprung. Spring it!

Secondly, make sure your students are getting enough sleep. This can be harder than you think, by the way. Whenever students are having difficulties getting their work finished and their parents talk to me about it, I try to make sure I ask them how much sleep their children are getting as well as how much they are getting.

A recent study shows that inadequate amounts of sleep led to lower math and reading abilities. Studies show that lack of sleep causes permanent changes in brain development, almost as if they are acquiring brain damage at a time when their teen brains are supposed to be completing in development.

Even old habits of staying up later on weekends can lead to problems. For example, the student who stays up 3 hours later on weekends has the same health problems as someone who has flown over 3 time zones. It's jetlag. So keeping consistent sleep hours on weekends is also important. And, by the way, you cannot recoup lost hours of sleep by sleeping extra time on the weekends.

Scientists have found that most people's bodies operate on a 25 hour day cycle. This cycle is called the circadian rhythm. Inconsistent sleep hours interferes with the two systems that control sleep, the circadian rhythm and the homeostatic pressure system. Interference with those systems can create depression and stress in students and adults.

Another study shows that students who get enough sleep can easily handle more extracurricular activities and still maintain high grades. Students who do not get enough sleep can, at most, handle well only one of these. Those with part-time jobs will have less sleep than their non-working counterparts even though they are usually more physically tired. Also having less time to study because of the job, they are doubly prone to academic difficulties and often either do not finish or finish poorly their assignments.

On the other hand, students who receive adequate sleep also have almost 20% fewer wrecks and even fewer problems driving. Teen boys are particularly susceptible to fall-asleep crashes.

Research also shows an interesting thing about ADD/ADHD. At least 25% of students diagnosed with ADD/ADHD actually are sleep deprived. When put on a schedule for sleep and taken off ADHD meds, these students continue to function normally. Interestingly, one of the side effects of Adderall, a common ADHD drug, is difficulty sleeping, which further exacerbates the problem.

Sometimes, students receive enough hours of sleep, but sleep poorly. One symptom of this is childhood snoring. Snoring in childhood is considered a symptom of sleep disorders such as sleep apnea. Experts feel children under the age of 18 should never be snoring. Apparently, childhood snoring, seen in about 16% of children, is different from adult snoring and causes oxygen deprivation in the brain.

So, how much time DOES a person need? Students between the ages of 5 & 8 should be getting 9-11 hours of sleep each night. Students ages 9-11 need about 8 hours of sleep a night. Students between the ages of 12 & 18 should be getting 9.5 hours of sleep each night, and adults should be getting 7-9 hours each night. One reason teens need the extra hours is that their hearts grow at a steady rate while their bodies grow in spurts. Often times, the heart is behind the body in growth, causing the body to need more rest, just as you would see in heart patients whose hearts do not work sufficiently for their bodies. Only now are scientists finding that lack of sleep as teens can lead to heart problems later in life.

Several points may help you with your student's sleep habits.
a) Make sure your child is not getting up at night while you sleep, often to pursue gaming or other electronic media. Don't let them keep gaming controllers in their rooms at night. Particularly, make sure their cell phones are turned completely off at night, so friends aren't waking them up with text messaging or even phone calls you don't hear because they are using vibration instead of rings. You'd be surprised how often this turns out to be a problem with some of the most innocent of teens.

b) Don't let them drink caffeinated beverages or high sugar drinks or snacks in the late evenings. Twelve ounces of Starbucks coffee has as much caffeine as 4 cans of cola soda. Some sodas, such as Mountain Dew, have much more. Energy drinks are typically highly loaded with stimulants and sugar. Be careful with these. Half the caffeine in a beverage will still be in the body affecting the body 5 hours later.

c) Realize that it may take your family 3 weeks to begin to be able to go to sleep earlier. Increase the amount of time slowly by pulling back the bedtime gradually. While teens will feel pressure from friends to set their own bedtimes, teens are not in the best position to make sensible choices in this area.

d) Physical choices around your home can help you assist your student's biological clock to reset. Teens sleep best in dark, cool rooms. In fact, a drop in body temperature will cause a person to feel sleepy. One way to get this drop is to have the teen take a warm shower and then go into a cool bedroom.

Exposure to bright sunlight as early in the day as possible will also help reset the sleep clock. Avoid dark colored drapes or shades that keep the light out of your child's early morning bedroom. Light colored paint on the walls also encourages the spread of morning light in the room.

Discourage the use of electronics for one hour before bedtime. Insist on quiet activities, such as reading or quiet music.

e) Research on naps is also interesting. While naps can help one feel physically better, they do not increase cognitive (thinking) ability. In fact, a two hour nap is equal to drinking 120 mg of caffeine as it affects the body physically, so you may feel more energy. However, the mental tiredness will overcome you again very shortly.

As you try to re-establish good sleep habits in your home, expect some resistance. Peer culture will cause even more of that. Stand your ground on this. Remember that your student's academic ability and even their short and long term physical health will improve as they get more sleep. So will yours. And, since it is almost 2 a.m., I'd better get to bed myself!

Expect God's joy! Sandy H