Intro to Sleep

When interviewing for jobs in my senior year of college, I had carefully rehearsed my answers.  If asked about my favorite class at Brown, I'd respond with one of my senior level Economics courses in which I'd earned an "A."  When I was interviewing with Andersen Consulting, I slipped.  I got into a casual conversation and answered "my Sleep seminar."  The interviewer, a Brown alum, looked at me puzzled and asked, "Sleep Psychology?"  Realizing my faux-pas, I swallowed and said, "Right, it's a Psych course."  Thus, ended that interview.

That's how I realized what my real favorite class was.  Psych 55: Introduction to Sleep taught by Professor Carskadon rocked!  It was a three hour seminar on Mondays from 3-6PM.  The time slot was brutal.  If anyone was caught dozing off, the professor would call on them...by name...in a 200+ person class.  Aside from our naps, her pet peeve was when we pronounced REM sleep as R.E.M. sleep.  We were an alt-rock school and it was difficult to break us of this habit.  But, the class was fascinating.  It gave an overview of sleep from regulation to physiology to disorders. 

Little did I realize that Intro to Sleep was only the start of my sleep education.

Getting Little N on a sleep schedule was the bane of my existence for the first 9 months of his life.  I read no less than five books on baby sleep, including Ferber's book and the popular with parents "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child."  It has been a torturous process and nothing worries me more than making sure he has good sleep habits from early on.

To that end, I just read "Nurtureshock: New Thinking About Children."  Chapter 2 "The Lost Hour" details the importance of sleep in children.  The science in it is solid.  Quoting the research of several Brown staff members, including Dr. Mary Carskadon, it concluded, what I've preached for some time, that sleep is crucial to a child's maturation and can even alter brain development.  [FYI...I had no idea that Brown is a leader in sleep research.  So glad I took that Sleep class!]

The authors cite the main issue: children are averaging an hour less sleep at night than children 30 years ago.  This loss reduces academic performance, affects emotional stability, and increases the risk of conditions such as obesity and ADHD.  Unlike adults, children cannot "catch-up" on sleep.

Key Points:

• A sleep deprivation study on a group of  sixth graders showed that missing one hour of sleep a night caused them to perform in class at the level of a fourth grader.  
• The more a child learns during the day, the more sleep is required to consolidate the memories associated with the information learned.
• Children who are sleep deprived are less able to recall pleasant memories 
• Lack of sleep increases the hormone that signals hunger and reduce the hormone that suppresses appetite.
• Teenagers undergo “phase shift” in their circadian rhythms which keeps them up 90 minutes later.  Teenagers are still producing melatonin when they wake up for school and are prone to falling back to sleep, usually in school.  This early schedule affects their grades and SAT scores. In fact, it is believed that the lack of sleep is also related to  “moodiness."
• Only 5% of high school seniors get 8 hours of sleep at night.
• The typical "A" student averaged 15 more minutes of sleep than a "B" student and so forth.  
• Teens in Minnesota showed dramatic increases in SAT scores (+56 points in Math, +156 points in Verbal) when their high school changed the school start time  from 7:25AM to 8:30AM.