Sacrificing Sleep For Study Time Doesn’t Make the Grade ( information from "The Sleep Doctor" for better sleep and better health)
It’s
back to school season, with students (and parents) saying goodbye to
the freewheeling days of summer and returning to the structure of the
academic year. The school routine typically includes early mornings and,
often, late nights of homework and studying.
For
students, there is increasing pressure to perform well academically,
especially as they enter high school and college is on the horizon.
Academic workloads increase, and so do time commitments to other
extracurricular activities, including sports. It can be a real challenge
to find enough time for all of this activity, and it’s not hard to see
how bedtime gets pushed back later and later, to make room for studying.
It
might seem like a reasonable sacrifice to give up a little sleep to hit
the books late into the night, but new research says this strategy
doesn’t work. This study found that students who stay up late doing
homework are more likely to have academic problems the next day. This is
true regardless of how much overall studying the student does,
according to the study results.
two different types of
academic problems:
* Having trouble understanding material being taught in class
* Doing poorly on tests, quizzes, or homework assignments
Researchers
found that opting to delay bedtime in favor of studying was linked to
an increased risk of both types of academic difficulty. And this was
true regardless of the total amount of students’ study time.
The
remedy to this problem is not to study less, but rather to create a
schedule that allows for sufficient study time and sufficient sleep
time. Is that easier said than done? Probably. But as these results
indicate, extra study time at the expense of sleep is like to create
academic problems, not solve them. And students who regularly stay up
late are exposed to other risks of low sleep. Here’s some of what we
know about how insufficient sleep can negatively affect teens:
Teens
who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to engage in risky and
unhealthful behaviors. This study found low sleep linked to increased
likelihood of smoking, drinking, drug use, and fighting, among other
risky behaviors.
Teens
who sleep less are more likely to gain weight. We know that low sleep
is associated with weight gain, in children as well as adults. This
study found that teens who sleep less are more likely to consume more
total calories in a day, as well as to eat higher fat foods and more
snack foods than teens who get enough sleep.
Teens
who are short on sleep are more likely to feel depressed and anxious.
There’s substantial evidence that teens with sleep problems are at
higher risk for mental health and behavioral problems. This National
Sleep Foundation survey found that teens short on sleep were
significantly more likely to experience depression, stress, excessive
worrying, and anxiety.
Teenagers,
as any parent knows, are predisposed to staying up late and sleeping
late, which complicates things even further. This is a biological
reality, not just a teenage preference! It’s not always easy to manage a
teenager’s sleep schedule. Here are some strategies that can help:
Keep
technology out of the bedroom. Electronic and digital devices have no
place in the bedroom. Exposure to the light emitted by these devices is
disruptive to sleep, and their presence at bedtime can keep teens
awake—or even keep them engaged in activity while they are asleep!
Work
backward to find the right bedtime. Teens need more sleep than adults,
about 9 hours per night. To find the appropriate bedtime, start by
identifying what time your teen needs to be rising from bed. From there,
work backward to set the bedtime that will ensure your teenager gets
enough rest.
Let
them sleep in a little on the weekends—just not a lot. With biological
and hormonal changes making teens inclined to sleep later, after a week
of school your teenager may want to spend most of Saturday in bed. This
much sleep isn’t healthy, and will actually make your teen feel more
tired, not less. Such a variation from the weekday routine will throw
your teen’s schedule off course. This doesn’t mean a little sleeping in
isn’t okay. Letting your teenager sleep for an extra hour or two on
weekend mornings is fine.
*We
all want our kids to study hard and achieve academic success. It’s
important to remember that sleep is a critical part of the equation
