Is lack of sleep a problem? Blame the lightbulb

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Is lack of sleep a problem? Blame the lightbulb

By Ficher Guy (canadianliving.com)

Discover how a lack of sleep may have harmful effects, including poor nutrition

and careless safety habits.

If lack of sleep is a problem in your family, blame Edison. Before the

invention of electricity, our sources of light were expensive and inefficient,

so the whole family was in bed shortly after sunset. Today we pay bills online

at 11 p.m. and our kids are instant-messaging their friends because they're just

finishing their homework or walking in from hockey practice.

" A lot of families don't see getting a good night's sleep as a health habit in

the same way they see eating well, wearing sunscreen or not smoking, " says Dr.

Judith Owens, director of the pediatric sleep disorders clinic at Hasbro

Children's Hospital in Providence, R.I.

Sleep scientists have studied the damaging effects of insufficient sleep in

adults for many years. In fact, studies of the Three Mile Island and Challenger

space shuttle disasters, as well as thousands of vehicle accidents every year,

reveal lost sleep as the culprit. But researchers have only recently turned

their attention to children.

One study turned up a startling find: for each of the past three decades,

children have lost a half-hour of sleep. Today's kids sleep an average of 90

minutes less each night than their counterparts did 30 years ago. Projecting

that pattern forward is frightening, especially since the effect of sleep loss

on growing minds and bodies is still not well understood.

Scientists know that children's sleep is different from that of adults in one

important way: children spend much more time in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep,

which is the " dream " stage of the sleep cycle. Infants, who typically sleep up

to 16 hours a day, spend half that time in REM sleep; compare that with a young

adult, who spends about 90 minutes in REM sleep, or a 60-year-old, who spends

only 20 minutes in the dream stage.

REM sleep is a crucial time for brain activity. The brain is at least as active

during the dream cycle as it is when a person is awake. Scientists assume all

this activity is related to neural plasticity, the growth and change of brain

cells. Recent research on children's brain development shows that kids aren't

born with complete brains; instead, they have a " starter set " that expands and

contracts according to experience.

Scientists believe REM sleep provides the opportunity for this growth and

change. It's during this time that kids' brains process the information they

encounter during the day that's why they spend so much more time in this stage

of sleep. Because the length of the REM cycle increases as the night wears on, a

shortened night of sleep means less time spent in REM sleep. Less time in REM

sleep, in turn, means less time for this important brain activity.

In theory, less time for brain growth and development means that the brain can't

change and modify itself as it needs to. This affects the brain's ability to

react and perform during the day. Recent studies on children's sleep support

this idea. In an American study of kids aged 10 to 14, researchers limited their

sleep to just five hours. The next day, both their abstract thinking and their

creativity (as measured with standardized tests) had decreased temporarily.

One study of nine- to 12-year-old Israeli children, subtitled " What a Difference

an Hour Makes, " intended to address the just-one-more-TV-show problem. The

study, released earlier this year, showed that reducing a child's sleep by a

single hour negatively affected his memory and reaction time on standardized

tests, says Avi Sadeh, an associate professor in the department of psychology at

Tel Aviv University and author of the study.

If sleep deprivation happens frequently, the important brain development that

needs to take place during childhood (or at least some portion of it) simply

can't happen. But sleep scientists say that they haven't studied sleep

deprivation in children long enough to have definite answers about such

long-term effects.

" The bottom line is that we don't really know, " says Owens. " What we do know is

that even modest amounts of chronic sleep deprivation in adults clearly have a

cumulative effect. " Owens is referring to the research on adult sleep

deprivation that shows the huge cost of this deficit to society (in terms of

accidents and health care).

" From a neurophysiological standpoint, I don't think there's any reason to

suspect that it's significantly different in children and it may be even worse, "

she adds.

Sleep deprivation among children is a ubiquitous and largely unrecognized

barrier to learning, reports Gibson, an epidemiologist at McMaster

University in Hamilton, in a paper he presented earlier this year. The former

president of Sleep/Wake Disorders Canada recently surveyed 3,200 Canadian high

school students and found that 70 per cent feel " very sleepy " between 8 and 10

a.m. Today's teens are thought to be the most sleep deprived among children

because their sleep need is approximately nine hours, but they rarely get that

much. Gibson's study also found that 75 per cent slept fewer than 8.5 hours each

night.

If sleep-deprived adults can make mistakes that may lead to serious accidents,

what about children? Research is only beginning in this area. A 2001 Italian

study of emergency-room visits by young boys showed a connection between risk of

injury and less than 10 hours' sleep. The study also noted a direct association

between injuries occurring between 4 p.m. and midnight, when the children had

been awake at least eight hours.

Sleep scientists are also finding connections between inadequate sleep and

hyperactivity. How children behave when they're tired is different from how

adults behave when they're sleepy. " People say, 'I'd know if my child were sleep

deprived because he'd be dopey,' " says Stanley Coren, a psychologist at the

University of British Columbia in Vancouver. " But that's not the way it works. "

In kids, loss of sleep often shows up as symptoms of hyperactivity because they

are trying hard to stimulate themselves and stay awake. " The child unconsciously

notices that if he speeds up his activities and bounces off the walls, that gets

the activity hormones going, " says Coren. " This makes him more alert, so you

have what appears to be a hyperactive child. It's like an adult self-medicating

for a sleep problem by drinking massive amounts of coffee. " Doctors who deal

with hyperactivity often prescribe more sleep as a first step because it

frequently solves the problem. If your kids constantly seem wound up, maybe it's

sleep that their bodies crave, not more physical activity.

Sleep deprivation is also linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

(ADHD). " Some studies show that infants with sleep problems in early childhood

are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and hyperactivity later, " says Sadeh.

" Even if the sleep issue isn't the original cause of ADHD, it can exacerbate it

because it leads to additional pressure on the same systems. "

Sleep quality is another issue causing measurable effects in kids' behaviour. A

survey of five- to seven-year-old American children showed a high correlation

between children who snored or had other sleep disturbances and those who showed

mild signs of ADHD. In another study, half of children with sleep apnea, a

condition that causes people to temporarily stop breathing and interrupts their

sleep, had their adenoids removed to solve the problem. This group saw their

grade point average increase from 2.4 to 2.8, while the grades of the other

half, who kept their adenoids, didn't change.

Perhaps not surprisingly, poor sleep also exacts its toll on mood. " Mood is

pretty uniformly affected in most of the studies that have looked at children

who are sleep restricted, " says Owens. She says that includes irritability,

whininess, low frustration tolerance and a less-positive outlook.

If poor school performance, decreased cognitive function, irritability and

hyperactivity are some of the effects of insufficient sleep, what are some of

the causes?

One of the big causes of poor sleep is childhood obesity, says Ian Macy,

director of the sleep clinic at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. " The

problem having an increasing impact is childhood obesity, " says Macy.

" Thirty per cent of American kids are now regarded as clinically obese. That's

causing sleep apnea, hyperventilation and sleep disturbances. And the reason is

inactivity. It's not that people are eating more; they're just doing less. "

Lack of activity, whether in an obese child or not, also causes poor sleep. " In

the old days, kids walked to school, " says Macy. " Now they insist on being

bused or driven. They didn't have TV. They were outside playing with their mates

in the street, kicking a ball around. " Having a full, active day is one way to

ensure a solid night's sleep, he says.

Another culprit of insufficient sleep is electronic diversions. Lots of parents

say kids have too much homework, but Macy points to the number of hours the

average North American child spends watching TV: " It's easy to blame schoolwork,

but the boob tube is probably the biggest culprit. " Owens agrees, reporting that

many kids in her recent survey talked of TVs in their rooms. " The Cartoon

Network is on 24 hours a day, and these kids are watching all kinds of things, "

she says. In teens, she says, Internet amusements are exacting their toll.

Owens also cites a shift in extracurricular activities into the evening hours to

accommodate parents' work schedules: " Many kids who are nine to 11 years old

have team practices from 7 to 9 p.m. They're vigorously exercising, which

everybody tells you that you shouldn't do within three hours of bedtime. Of

course they're wired, and by the time they get to bed, it's 10:30 or 11 p.m. "

The 24-hour-a-day society is affecting us all, says Macy: " It's too easy to

stay up and do things, and we're all pressured to do more and more. " He says

that the fix is easy but hard because it requires an attitude and lifestyle

shift.

" It's doable, " says Owens. " Parents have to become convinced that it's an issue

that they have to pay attention to. You wouldn't give your child a diet of

french fries if she wanted it. " Parents must enforce limits around sleep:

coaches have to be told that practice from 8 to 10 p.m. is out of the question,

she says. " We have the opportunity to teach kids from an early age that sleep is

important and that it's an important health behaviour, " says Owens.

If rethinking priorities to shift the importance of sleep seems like the

impossible dream, consider the reward. " The kids getting proper sleep have an

edge, both physically and mentally, " says Coren. In Part 2 of our three-part

series on kids and sleep, meet families who are getting their school-age kids to

bed on time (but not without a fight).

[Guest guest]

I think TV, Computers and video games play a far larger role than just the lightbulb. After all, its not like the vast majority of these kids, etc., are up reading into the wee hours, playing board games with family and friends and so on. For that matter, a lot of the content of Cartoon Network after 10 PM isn't meant for children anyway, some of I won't watch either. A lot of their in house material is repulsive and I fear they will be making more.

Its really up to the parents to get kids in bed and turn their toys off and keep them off, not the government to get involved.

In a message dated 12/3/2010 12:49:42 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

Is lack of sleep a problem? Blame the lightbulb

[Guest guest]

I have gotten into trouble as a child for reading very late at night, and so have my cousins.

I think TV, Computers and video games play a far larger role than just the lightbulb. After all, its not like the vast majority of these kids, etc., are up reading into the wee hours, playing board games with family and friends and so on. For that matter, a lot of the content of Cartoon Network after 10 PM isn't meant for children anyway, some of I won't watch either. A lot of their in house material is repulsive and I fear they will be making more.

Its really up to the parents to get kids in bed and turn their toys off and keep them off, not the government to get involved.

In a message dated 12/3/2010 12:49:42 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

Is lack of sleep a problem? Blame the lightbulb

[Guest guest]

So did I when I was younger and even today I stay up far too late reading sometimes. However, the members of this board generally aren't like the vast majority in the first place.

I have gotten into trouble as a child for reading very late at night, and so have my cousins.

[Guest guest]

Agreed.

Administrator

Its really up to the parents to get kids in bed and turn their toys off and keep

them off, not the government to get involved.

[Guest guest]

Me too. Sometimes I would go to school blear-eyed in the morning because I had

spent most of the night reading a really good novel.

Administrator

" I have gotten into trouble as a child for reading very late at night, and so

have my cousins. "

[Guest guest]

said,

excerpted;

Its really up to the parents to get kids in bed and turn their toys off and keep them off, not the government to get involved.

My comments;

when I was growing up, we had only 3 or 4 channels on tv;

when my dad had to work day shift, and leave for work wround 5 am, he insisted that my mum and I have NO noise after he went to bed; so I may have read in my room but cant't remember; (it did not occur to us to suggest that dad wear ear plugs, or osundproof their room; he was 'the boss' (1950's, 1960's)

when dad worked after-noon shift, and got home around midnight; I was expected to be in my room and quiet before he got home, even when I was in high school!!

i remember my mom allowing me once or twice to stay up 'late' to watch TV, one movie was "The Collector", a sort of horror psychodrama, but we made sure lights were out bfor dad got home. (in retrospect it sounds like 2 kids being disobedient)

my University Years were rather chaotic as far as night and day;

As a young married adult; I stayed up late reading some times as we had no TV,

when we got a TV, I would stay up into th small hours of the next day, if not having to be some where I would sleep late, otherwise burn tha candle at both ends (not healthy);

BUT when I got a delivery job, I adjusted my hours so I could be delivering before th sun came up for much of the year.

Now I am asleep before my famly most nights, don't even hear husband get up to go our at 5:30 am, (age catches up to me)

rl

rl

'My cat Rusty is a servant of the Living God....'

adapted from a poem by Smart

Subject: Re: Is lack of sleep a problem? Blame the lightbulbTo: FAMSecretSociety Received: Friday, December 3, 2010, 11:11 AM

I think TV, Computers and video games play a far larger role than just the lightbulb. After all, its not like the vast majority of these kids, etc., are up reading into the wee hours, playing board games with family and friends and so on. For that matter, a lot of the content of Cartoon Network after 10 PM isn't meant for children anyway, some of I won't watch either. A lot of their in house material is repulsive and I fear they will be making more.

Its really up to the parents to get kids in bed and turn their toys off and keep them off, not the government to get involved.

In a message dated 12/3/2010 12:49:42 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

Is lack of sleep a problem? Blame the lightbulb

[Guest guest]

When I was a child there were only about 8 to 12 channels you could get by antenna. My family was one of the first to get "cable" which was a box on top of the TV with a dial type switch to switch from regular TV to the Showtime channel. It wasn't long after that, maybe when I was 10 to 12, that cable became common in the neighborhood, with many more channels than just Showtime. Amusingly where I went to high school in the late 1980's didn't have cable because it was way out in the country. We just had the antenna for about 5 or 6 channels. We got cable my senior year.

My place in Alabama still doesn't have cable and probably never will because it is so far out. The town a few miles away has it, but I don't think it will ever be cost effective to send cable down the road to my place or to the other rural houses. My uncle had satellite TV but that's been cancelled since it doesn't make sense to have it since no one is usually there.

My comments;

when I was growing up, we had only 3 or 4 channels on tv;

when my dad had to work day shift, and leave for work wround 5 am, he insisted that my mum and I have NO noise after he went to bed; so I may have read in my room but cant't remember; (it did not occur to us to suggest that dad wear ear plugs, or osundproof their room; he was 'the boss' (1950's, 1960's)

when dad worked after-noon shift, and got home around midnight; I was expected to be in my room and quiet before he got home, even when I was in high school!!