Importance of Sleep

 

In a study of 120 students, the Journal of Adolescent Health found that only 30 % of students sleep at least 8 hours a night. Teens need between 8 and 10 hours of sleep each night. Getting the proper amount of sleep is necessary to performing at your highest potential in all areas of life. Sleep will help you on the road to good fitness, good eating, and good health.

 

Tips for a better night’s sleep:

• Create a consistent meal schedule for yourself and don’t eat late at night.

• Having a sleep schedule where you go to bed and wake up around the same times create a sort of internal clock, which should be plugged in on the weekends too!

• Create a good sleeping environment. This means that you shouldn’t spend hours in bed doing work or scrolling through your phone because it makes it difficult to put your head to pillow and actively focus on sleeping. Try to associate your bed only with sleeping.
   

Facts About Sleep

 

Engaging in a greater number of sleep-interfering activities before going to bed has been associated with less nocturnal sleep and more daytime sleepiness in adolescents. Consequences such as poor judgment, lack of motivation, and inattention resulting from sleep loss. Insufficient sleep also has effects on decision-making skills which further increase the potential negative effects in adolescents. In particular, cognitive “executive functions,” are selectively affected by sleep loss.

 

• During periods of stress and a heavy workload many students choose to skip on hours of sleep which only multiplies that stress and can create physical and mental weariness

• Sleep is a vital part of muscle recovery following any kind of physical activity as well as healthy brain function and emotional well-being.

 

Activity

Rules: On a blank piece of paper, please number the left side 1-4. For each statement below, please write if you believe it is a myth or a fact.

 

Questions:

1. Getting just one hour less sleep per night won’t affect your daytime functioning.

2. Your body adjusts quickly to different sleep schedules.

3. Extra sleep at night can cure you of problems with excessive daytime fatigue.

4. You can make up for lost sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends.

 

Answers // Learning Points for Activity

1. MYTH - You may not be noticeably sleepy during the day, but losing even one hour of sleep can affect your ability to think properly and respond quickly. It also compromises your cardiovascular health, energy balance, and ability to fight infections.

2. MYTH - Most people can reset their biological clock, but only by one or two hours per day at best. Consequently, it can take more than a week to adjust after traveling across several time zones or switching to the night shift.

3. MYTH - The quantity of sleep you get is important, but it's the quality of your sleep that you really have to pay attention to. Some people sleep eight or nine hours a night, but don’t feel well rested when they wake up because the quality of their sleep is poor.

4. MYTH - Although this sleeping pattern will help relieve part of a sleep debt, it will not completely make up for the lack of sleep. Furthermore, sleeping later on the weekends can affect your sleep-wake cycle so that it is much harder to go to sleep at the right time on Sunday nights and get up early on Monday mornings.

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Citations:

1: https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/teens-and-sleep

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2: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/10/among-teens-sleep-deprivation-an-epidemic.html