7/31/2019 Week 43 Health

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HealthDay Reporter

When children can get just a little

more sleep each night, their school be-havior and alertness levels improve,new research suggests.

"Even small changes in daily lifethat can allow children to add about ahalf hour of sleep could have a sig-nificant impact," said study authorReut Gruber, director of the attentionbehavior and sleep lab at the DouglasInstitute at McGill University, inQuebec.

The finding is published onlineOct. 15 and in the November printissue of Pediatrics.

For the research, Gruber randomlyassigned 34 children, aged 7 to 11, to

one of two groups. One group had

their sleep restricted, with bedtimesmoved back so they lost an hour ofsleep, for five nights straight.

The other group had their bed-times moved up, so they gained anhour of sleep time for five consecutivenights.

In all, 33 children finished thestudy.

The children wore wrist-watch likedevices, called actigraphs, to recordtheir sleep.

Gruber found the sleep-extensiongroup slept on average just 27 addi-tional minutes a night. Those in therestricted group slept, on average, 54minutes less a night.

At the study start, both groupsslept, on average, about nine hours.Children in this age group shouldsleep 10 or 11 hours, according to theNational Sleep Foundation.

Teachers rated the children onstandard measures of behavior, such

as impulsivity, restlessness and emo-

tional ability. They also noted daytimesleepiness.

Those in the extra sleep group didbetter, showing improvement in alert-ness, behavior and emotions, the re-searchers found. Those in therestricted group had declining scoreson alertness.

The findings are no surprise, saidDean Beebe, a professor of pediatricsat the Cincinnati Children's HospitalMedical Center and the University ofCincinnati College of Medicine.

He has studied inadequate sleepand its effects on teen behavior. Hecautioned parents, however, that theextra sleep can't be just for one nightbut should be a long-term change iftheir children are not sleepingenough.

"It's a lifestyle thing, not a quickone-night [change]," he said.

He pointed out that even thoughthe children in the study, on average,were getting a fair amount of sleep --nine hours or so -- they still did bet-ter when they got more sleep.

Study author Gruber said thatchildren may be sleep-deprived for a

number of reasons. They can get in-

volved in electronic media past bed-time, including playing video games,watching television, texting or talk-ing to friends.

Parents may also encourage toomuch activity at night, she said.When children are too busy withschoolwork and extracurricular ac-tivities, it often delays bedtimes, shesaid.

Advice? Prioritize sleep, Grubersaid. Set and keep a consistent bed-

time.Don't allow electronics in the bed-

room. Be sure the bedroom environ-ment is comfortable, she said.

Beebe had some advice as well.He told parents to remember that

they still have control over householdactivity. Beebe promotes a pre-bed-time wind-down, starting a half-hourto an hour before the set bedtime."Take the tempo down," he said. In-struct the kids to use the time to

shower or bathe, read a book or oth-erwise relax.

More information:To learn more about children and

sleep, visit the National Sleep Foun-dation.

SOURCES: Reut Gruber, Ph.D.,clinical psychologist, and director, At-tention Behavior and Sleep Lab, Dou-glas Institute, McGill University,Quebec; Dean Beebe, Ph.D., professor,pediatrics, Cincinnati Children's Hos-pital Medical Center and Universityof Cincinnati College of Medicine; No-

vember 2012 PediatricsCopyright 2012 HealthDay. All

rights reserved.

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Extra half-hour a night made adifference in alertness, attention