Don't Blame The Teacher

All-too-frequent adolescent nodding off in class may not necessarily be because of boring teachers. A growing body of evidence points to sleep deprivation.

A study involving roughly 2,200 middle school students in Illinois revealed a rising level of sleep deprivation between the sixth and eighth grade. Results of the study also contradicted the prevailing view that lack of sleep was caused by depression. Rather, it appears that sleep deprivation may contribute to depression and low self-esteem.

Dr. Robert Keith, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System nutritionist and Auburn University professor of nutrition and foods science, has expressed similar views.

“If kids require nine hours of sleep, and children have to get up at 6:00 a.m. to go to school, then parents should insist that they go to bed at 9:00 p.m.,” he says. “Because if they’re waiting to go to bed at about the same time as their parents – 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. – they’re sleep deprived and are not going to be doing so well.”

Research also has shown that sleep is much more effective when it takes place in a regular pattern, Keith says.

“Sleeping 10 hours to make up for the six hours you got the night before is not as effective as a regular sleep pattern,” he says. “Instead, you should be going to bed at regular hours and striving to get up at the same time every morning, because your body needs the right amount of sleep in a regular pattern.”

“This is particularly true for kids, especially when they’re in school.”

Catnaps don’t work.

True, some of history’s most famous insomniacs, most notably Winston Churchill, claimed to have gotten by with daily catnaps. But what was good for Churchill, a wartime leader leading a life-and-death struggle against Nazi Germany, isn’t the best choice for a student or, for that matter, ordinary person holding a day job.

“Sleep typically involves patterns where you start out with lighter sleep and pass into a much deeper sleep – a cycle that may be repeated several times a night,” Keith says. “Getting adequate sleep requires passing through all of these phases – something you don’t get with catnaps.”

Posted by Jim Langcuster at February 13, 2004 09:17 AM