Better sleep equals better schooling
Now’s the time to get kids back to a back-to-school sleep routine.
A lack of adequate rest and sleep disorders will derail the efforts of many students returning to school over the coming weeks, according to experts at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
Four out of 10 children don’t get enough sleep and more than 2 million children nationwide suffer from sleep disorders, federal health officials say.
Sleep is essential to school performance because it gives children’s bodies and brains time to grow, gives their tissues and central nervous system time to undergo necessary repairs and is essential for learning and memory consolidation, said Dr. Sangeeta Chakravorty, director of Children’s Sleep Program. “Families are adding more and more activities to their children’s calendars and children have more homework than ever before, so sleep is the one area students borrow time from in order to meet these expectations,” he said. “Unfortunately, getting less sleep means they inadvertently sabotage their own school performance. At a minimum, kids ages 6 to 12 need 10 hours of sleep a night and teenagers need about 9 hours to maximize their learning potential at school.”