Sleep - An Academic Intervention for All Students

During the holiday break I have been able to catch up on some professional reading. One article of interest came from the Association for Curriculum and Supervision Development publication "Health Learning" titled "Sleep: The E-ZZZ Intervention." Some interesting data was presented within the article summarized below:

• Sleep deprived students tend to be more restless, irritable and impulsive
• Sleep deprived students may be more depressed and have lower self esteem
• Sleep deprived students demonstrate lower academic achievement with decreased motivation, concentration, attention and coherent reasoning
• Studies found that students that went to bed 30-40 minutes earlier than normal improved in memory, motor speed, attention and other abilities associated with reading and math scores
• Students with As and Bs tend to have a small discrepancy between their weekday and weekend sleep hours

How much sleep is needed? As students grow, their need for sleep gradually diminishes. A ten-year old needs 10 hours with the amount dropping as they move into adolescence. During puberty the amount will need to return to 9-10 hours. Eight hours are a minimum with our students' busy lives.

A common practice mentioned is having students receiving less sleep on school nights then "sleeping in" on weekends. This creates a "sleep jet lag" with school achievement likely to suffer. Changing sleep cycles should be started slowly in increments of 15-30 minutes over several weeks. An easy indicator is how easy the student wakes up in the morning. Common avoidances to monitor includes noise, stress, light, lack of exposure to daylight, lack of exercise, excessive TV viewing, excessive computer use and caffeine intake.

This is one controllable intervention for parents to practice and instill within their student's lifestyle for success. With an estimated 85 percent of all students reporting to be at least mildly sleep deprived and up to 40 percent significantly sleep deprived, all of us should be aware of its impact on our young people.