Lack of sleep because of improper school schedule Part 1
How chronic lack of sleep affects the health and emotional state of a teenager. Morning in adolescence is associated with lack of sleep for students and neurosis for parents. Yes son or daughter to school — a daily practice, and from family to family methods of awakening of varying degrees of ingenuity. Turn on the lights and tear the blanket with sleeping — not the most sophisticated way to sleep. Sometimes parents include loud music, buying the intricate alarms that fly around the room or require an eight digit password to disable. Needless to mention the cases when children doused with cold water, time to collect them?
Sleep researcher, University of California Wendy Troxel believes that “snatching” from the dream at the age of 13 to 18 years directly affects their intellectual development and health.
Lack of sleep affects the ability of a teenager to learn. If a child gets a daily dose of sleep, his brain is able to focus better, memorize and process information he receives in class. Chronic lack of sleep these abilities are reduced.
Research Troxel, only 1 out of 10 teenagers sleeping 8-10 hours a day. Eight hours is the lower limit of normal, for example, a “C grade”. Besides, it is impossible to be sure that the child is really asleep. He can just lie there with my eyes closed, digging into the device or to read.
“So kids are to blame, why don’t they just go to bed early?”. This is the view of parents, confident that the regime is easy to establish strict discipline. Yes, you can force the child to be in bed a certain time, but that doesn’t mean that his body will fully recover by the start of the school day.
In puberty the human biological clock is shifted. This is due to the acceleration of the production of the hormone melatonin, which is responsible for sleep. It is called a regulator of circadian rhythms, because the amount of melatonin in the body affects the feeling of cheerfulness and drowsiness. A peculiar mode switch “day/night”. Because of this offset time, sleep and Wake the teenager shifted two hours back, because the release of melatonin in the adolescent body is not at nine in the evening, adults or small children, and at 11 PM.
That is, in the present teenagers want to not sleep at 21:00 and 23:00.
Troxel the study results comparison: “to Wake the teenager at six in the morning — it’s like waking adult in four. Don’t know about you, but when I get up at four in the morning, I feel like a zombie. Absolutely useless”. How to take new material and show good results in training, if an adult in this state would not be worth driving?
Similar challenges Teens around the world face each day. Experts on sleep seriously believe that such common attributes of adolescent behavior, like mood swings, irritability, laziness, and depression may be consequences of chronic sleep deprivation. To save energy for the whole day, folks resort to quick ways to fill it: drink coffee and energy drinks. So we get a generation “tired and nervous” teenagers.
Supporters of the later start of the school day know that in adolescence the brain develops most rapidly. Especially those parts responsible for thought processes, including finding the cause and effect relationships, problem solving and the formation of beliefs. At this time the human personality is formed, and if his body is exhausted, he will not be able to develop in full force. They will not be able to concentrate, their memory and attention scattered, but the hormones it requires activity.
This is reflected in the sharp emotional reactions that make parents of teenagers in shock.
The consequences of sleep deprivation continue to occur outside of school. In adolescence increases the risk of mental disorders, including depression and suicidal tendencies. At the same time formed a dependency, including alcohol, tobacco and drugs. In their study, Troxel gives the following data: for every hour of sleep deprivation in high school students by 38%, increases the feeling of anxiety, sadness and hopelessness, and 58% increases the desire to commit suicide. In addition, chronic lack of sleep is the cause of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.