You're
Feeling Very Sleepy
By
Dr. Kathie F Nunley
With
all the research cropping up lately about sleep, educators,
parents, and school boards are becoming increasingly concerned
about students' sleep habits. The latest research is showing
that sleep not only is a time for cells and general body tissues
to heal, refresh, and repair, it is also the time when our brain
maintenance is in full swing. Sleep is the time when nerve cells
branch in our brains, hardwiring in the day's learning. Children
who are sleep deprived after learning new information are unable
to process and use that information as well as children who
are not sleep deprived.(1)
So just
how much sleep is enough sleep? While individual bodies vary,
there are some general rules of thumb for sleep. We've heard
for years that we need 8 hours of sleep at night, but the truth
is that the length varies widely and the amount tends to decrease
with age.
Young children
need tremendous amounts of sleep not only because they are growing,
but because their brains require a great deal of maintenance
time. So how much is enough? What you really should be doing
is going to bed at night and sleeping until your body says,
"OK, we're done here, wake up." Unfortunately most of us override
the body's own system with such things as alarm clocks, thereby
depriving ourselves of a properly maintained brain.
The average
adult, 33- 45 years of age needs 7 hours of sleep a night. This
means, that if you need to wake at 6 am, you should be sleeping
by 11:00 PM. That doesn't seem to be an impossible task for
most adults. But let's look at school-aged brains.
The average
high schooler needs 8.5 hours of sleep. A middle schooler, 10
hours. Children in elementary grades first through fourth should
be getting 10.5 and preschoolers, 11 hours of sleep.(2)
Anyone
overriding their brain's own maintenance department is losing
out on the opportunity to develop their brains and their intellect
to its full capacity. Because most middle and high-schooler's
bodies are running on an "owl" day rhythm, meaning their bodies
have a tendency to stay up late at night and sleep later in
the day, it makes it nearly impossible for them to go to bed
early enough at night to get all the sleep they need and still
wake in time for school. After all, how many middle schoolers
do you know who can go to sleep at 8:30 at night in order to
be rested for a 6:00 am wake up time?
How many
of America's students are sleep deprived? Ask yourself, at your
school, what percentage of students have been woken up this
morning by artificial means, i.e.: alarm clocks, parents, siblings?
That's the percentage of students in your school who are not
getting the rest they need. A bit frightening I think.
Sources:
(1):
*Binks, et.al, Sleep, 1999(May), V. 22(3),
328-334.
*Wolfson, A. 1998. Child Development, Vol 69(4) 875-887.
*Blunden, S., et.al, 2000. Journal of Clinical & Experimental
Neuropsychology, Vol 22(5) 554-568.
* Stickgold, R., et. al. 2000. Nature Neuroscience, Vol 3(12)
1237-1238
(2)
Huffman (1994). Psychology, 3rd Ed. John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
Kathie
F. Nunley is an educational psychologist, author, researcher
and speaker living in southern New Hampshire. Developer of the
Layered Curriculum® method of instruction, Dr. Nunley has
authored several books and articles on teaching in mixed-ability
classrooms and other problems facing today's teachers. Full
references and additional teaching and parental tips are available
at: http://Help4Teachers.com Email her:
Kathie (at) brains.org
Dr Kathie Nunley