Stephanie Young's List: Sleep Deprivation

• In adults, such meager sleep allowances are known to affect day-to-day functioning in myriad ways. In adolescents, who are biologically driven to sleep longer and later than adults do, the effects of insufficient sleep are likely to be even more dramatic--so much so that some sleep experts contend that the nation's early high-school start times, increasingly common, are tantamount to abuse.
• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, for example, drowsiness and fatigue cause more than 100,000 traffic accidents each year--and young drivers are at the wheel in more than half of these crashes.
• Recent research has also revealed an association between sleep deprivation and poorer grades.

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• Studies have shown that sleep deprivation negatively affects short-term memory, as well as physical and emotional health. Teachers and parents must be made aware of the effects of long-term sleep deprivation on students in elementary, middle and high schools. Several programs can inform teachers and administrators of ways to address the problem of sleep deprivation through changes in school schedules, teaching strategies and student involvement. An experiment conducted on fourth graders across the country will examine the link between sleep deprivation, motivation and short-term memory performance. Hypothetically, motivation may offset the effects of sleep deprivation and thus be seen as a moderating factor in school achievement.

• If they did, she said, high schools would start later than they do, and teachers would educate students about a subject as basic as reading and math: sleep.
• The researchers measured the presence of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin in teenagers' saliva at different times of the day. They learned that the melatonin levels rise later at night than they do in children and adults -- and remain at a higher level later in the morning.
• Issues surrounding sleep -- who needs how much and when -- are usually given short shrift in efforts to improve student achievement. But modern brain researchers say it is time that more schools faced the biological facts.

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• Sleep deprivation can even be fatal. Some 55% of all car crashes in which drivers fell asleep involve people under age 26, according to the National Institutes of Health's National Center on Sleep Disorders Research in Bethesda, Md.

• Overstimulated, overscheduled kids are getting at least an hour’s less sleep than they need, a deficiency that, new research reveals, has the power to set their cognitive abilities back years.
• But once Morgan spent a year in the classroom of a demanding teacher, she could no longer unwind at night. Despite a reasonable bedtime of 9:30 p.m., she would lay awake in frustration until 11:30, sometimes midnight, clutching her leopard-fur pillow. On her fairy-dust purple bedroom walls were taped index cards, each with a vocabulary word Morgan was having trouble with. Unable to sleep, she turned back to her studies, determined not to let her grades suffer. Instead, she saw herself fall apart emotionally. During the day, she was noticeably crabby and prone to crying easily. Occasionally, Morgan nearly fell asleep in class.