Why We Need Sleep
Sleep is a phenomenon addressed by doctors and scientists for decades. We all know we need it and many of us would be the first to admit we aren’t getting enough of it. Children especially need a consistent bedtime routine while getting enough hours to ensure not only their physiological well-being but also their emotional well-being. According to a doctor at John’s Hopkins All Children’s Hospital:
“Studies have shown that kids who regularly get an adequate amount of sleep have improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, and overall mental and physical health. Not getting enough sleep can lead to high blood pressure, obesity and even depression.”
As explained by Dr. Walker, a neuroscientist and sleep researcher, author of Why We Sleep, both children and adults need to take sleep more seriously for these additional reasons:
Adults who sleep less than 8 hours and children who sleep less than 10 hours will have negative effects on their brain (such as memory loss) and body (such as high blood pressure). Research has shown that sleep protects our mental health, metabolism, immune system, cardiovascular system, and reproductive system.
Drowsy driving is the cause of hundreds of thousands of traffic accidents and fatalities each year. One person dies every hour in the United States due to a fatigue-related error, exceeding those deaths caused by alcohol and drugs combined.
At all times we want to make sure we are taking care of our immune system, and without enough sleep our immune system will weaken, making us more vulnerable to diseases. Helping children understand why they need sleep doesn’t have to be scary. It may be helpful to use language with children that is positive, outlining the benefits rather than dwelling on the negatives.
Parents and educators can help explain some of these benefits as well as other helpful information about why we sleep:
Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Just like food, sleep is one of the basic needs we require as humans. In fact, every species studied to date sleeps: elephants need 4 hours of sleep, tigers and lions sleep 15 hours, and squirrels sleep 16 hours. Our need for sleep must be met before any of our other needs can truly be met.
Dr. Walker explains that two factors influence when we want to sleep: our circadian rhythm (or internal clock) and adenosine, a chemical that accumulates during the day, which creates a “sleep pressure” that becomes irresistible and is evacuated when you sleep.
Each night, we experience two equally important types of sleep within 90-minute cycles:
Non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM), or deep sleep, is characterized by slow, synchronous brain waves and “sleep spindles.” This is when consolidation of learning takes place. Our brain remembers, or stores, important information and deletes the unnecessary ones. This is crucial for remembering both facts and motor skills, such as how to ride a bike.
Rapid eye movement sleep (REM), or paradoxical sleep, represents 25% of an adult’s average time sleeping. In this type of sleep, some regions of the brain are 30% more active than when we are awake even though our body is asleep. REM is a highly associative state as different pieces of information are processed with different speeds (vs. unanimous processing of NREM). During this cycle there is also a strong activation of visual, motor, emotional and autobiographical memory regions of the brain, yet a relative deactivation in regions that control rational thought which is crucial for creativity, problem-solving and emotional health. Dreams take place during REM-sleep, fostering emotional healing. Indeed, research has shown that when we dream, we actually focus on the emotions we had that day and dreams help us process them, therefore we feel emotionally better after a good night's sleep. Dr. Walker explains that people who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have high levels of noradrenaline, which prevents them from entering REM-sleep dreaming and thus, from healing the trauma memory. There are, however, ways to reduce noradrenaline levels so they can dream and heal.
Parents can also gear the conversation toward how sleep will help them with their goals for the next day. For example, when a child asks why they need to go to bed parents can say:
You will feel energized and ready for the new day ahead, what is your goal for tomorrow?
Sleep keeps our bodies healthy, what are some other things we can do to help our bodies stay healthy?
Your body needs rest from the busy day you had today. What was your favorite part of today? What are you looking forward to for tomorrow?
Sleep and Social Emotional Learning
Many of us know when we don’t get enough sleep we are less likely to have positive engagement with others. Dr. Walker shares that sleep helps to stabilize our emotional and mental health: “Without sleep the emotional circuits of your brain become hyperactive and irrational.” With even a little bit of sleep deprivation not only is our capacity for learning reduced but also our capacity for empathy. For children who are having a difficult time falling asleep or sleeping through the night, these habits may be related to more severe anxiety issues, but typically it stems from the fear of being alone and not having the coping mechanisms to self-soothe and comfort. It is much easier to run to a parent to be put at ease than to rely on themselves! When parents work with their children to problem solve together and maintain a consistent sleep schedule children will strengthen their independence.
Establishing a Bedtime Routine
Children ages 3-5 should be getting 10-13 hours of sleep as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Here are some tips on how to help establish a bedtime routine and ensure your child is getting enough sleep without the difficulty of falling asleep or waking up during the night.
Model behavior
As with any social emotional skill it is important for parents to model the behaviors they want their child to see as healthy and will have a positive impact on their emotional well-being. Some of these behaviors may include eating healthy and getting daily exercise.
Turn off technology
This is helpful for both children and adults. Both the mental activity of using technology and being exposed to the light promotes wakefulness, emits delays in our internal clock and delays the release of our sleep hormones. Turning off the iPads and tablets before bedtime will help avoid disruptions in a child’s sleep cycle and ensure longer sleep times. For more information visit sleepfoundation.org.
Quiet activities
During the busyness of our day we may forget to find mindful moments. Before going to sleep is the best time to practice mindfulness whether through yoga or meditation. Our app, Wisdom: The World of Emotions, includes recordings of meditations for children (and adults) to follow along with! These activities will help your child feel calm and ready to rest both their minds and bodies.
Avoid caffeine
This goes especially for both adults and children. Caffeine hijacks and occupies the receptors of adenosine, preventing you from feeling sleepy for 5 to 7 hours, in other words it blocks the sleep-inducing chemicals in your brain. Caffeine is present in coffee, dark chocolate, certain teas, hot chocolate, energy drinks, chocolate and coffee ice cream and even pain relievers, and should all be avoided before going to sleep.
Consistency
Dr. Walker shared that we can’t necessarily get back any lost sleep. He says, “Sleep is not like a bank in a sense you can’t accumulate a debt and hope to pay it off at a later time.” Many of us do this as adults, getting less sleep during the week and “making it up” on the weekend. The problem is this isn’t consistent sleep. Dr. Walker shares this kind of behavior of getting 5 hours of sleep each night during the week and 8-10 on the weekend is associated with an unhealthy life and increases our risk for diabetes and high blood pressure. It is important for parents to establish a routine of consistent sleep for their children.
Room temperature
To help us fall asleep, our circadian rhythm coordinates a drop in core body temperature as we approach typical bedtime. Most of us set a controlled bedroom temperature too high (70-72°F) and notice our children fall asleep with their limbs and extremities dangling out of bed to keep their core body cool. Research has shown that the ideal room temperature to sleep is about 65°F, assuming standard bedding and clothing.
Activities for Maintaining Good Sleep Habits
While modeling positive habits when it comes to sleep and establishing a consistent bedtime routine is important, parents and educators can also use these activities to talk to children about sleep:
Conversations about Sleep
Parents can start conversations with their children about sleep by first sharing their own experiences. Here are some prompts parents can use:
When I have a hard time falling asleep, I can….
When I wake up during the night, I usually…
When I get a good night's sleep, I wake up feeling…
When I don’t get a good night's sleep, I wake up feeling…
Sleep Journal
Use our sleep journal template to encourage your child to draw connections between what they do before they go to sleep, how well they sleep, and how they feel when they wake up. You can print multiple copies of this template to help your child keep track of their sleep and compare days they slept well to days they didn’t sleep well.
Sleep Challenge
Whether as a class or as a family, you can set up a sleep challenge by having each participant create logs of how many hours of sleep they got each night and at what time they went to bed. After a week (or a month), the person who registers the highest sleep time average and bedtime consistency is recognized as the “learner of the week / month.” One school organized a school-wide sleep challenge, averaging the number of hours slept and consistency for each class (including their teacher!), and designated a winning class for each grade!
When we get a good night’s sleep our mind and body thanks us! Parents can help their children maintain a consistent sleep schedule. By having conversations about their sleep or keeping a sleep journal children will begin to see how transformative it is for their ability to learn and empathize with others - all because they are routinely getting a good night’s sleep. We can’t forget how important sleep is to our children’s education and emotional well-being.
“When sleep is abundant, minds flourish.” - Dr. Matthew Walker
A prior version of this article was originally published on August 25, 2020.
