"Sleep debt" tied to attention trouble in teens

[unreal.livejournal.com]

High school students who catch up on sleep over the weekend do worse on attention tests in school than kids who don't get extra shuteye, according to a new study from South Korea.

Researchers say the findings suggest "sleep debt" accumulated during the week might be taxing the teens' intellectual resources.

"It's like a bank -- they are on constant, huge sleep overdraft," Dr. David Gozal, an expert in childhood sleep problems at the University of Chicago, told Reuters Health.

"If this is the way you manage your credit card, you will be bankrupt very soon," Gozal, who was not part of the study, said.

On average, the Korean teens -- some 2,600 high school students -- only got five hours and 42 minutes of sleep on weekdays. During the weekend, however, they added nearly three hours of shuteye per night, based on questionnaires.


Those who slept more on weekends -- indicating they were sleep deprived during the week -- did worse on computerized attention tasks in class, Dr. Seog Ju Kim of Gachon University of Medicine and Science in Incheon and colleagues found.

Although their results don't prove that lack of sleep is to blame, they could not be explained by differences in age, sex, depression or snoring, the researchers report in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Attention problems were not tied to the number of hours teens slept during the week, however. Gozal said that makes sense because some children may thrive on little sleep, whereas those who don't will try to catch up on their sleep debt over the weekend.

To Gozal, the findings are just one more piece of evidence showing that cutting back on sleep can take a toll on youngsters -- even if they're spending the extra waking hours doing homework.

"Attention and executive function is the first step of academic success," he said. "There is enough evidence from animals that shows the need for sleep is not something we can circumvent."

Gozal explained that while Korean students might be getting less sleep than their American peers, sleep has also become a scarce commodity in the U.S. -- among teenagers, adults and even babies.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, school-age children and adolescents should sleep at least nine hours per night, although some do fine on less.

"In a society that is very driven by academic performance," Gozal said, "a child or adolescent that needs to catch up on sleep during the weekend is probably a child at risk."

Source: baltimoresun

Comments

[shimizumiki.livejournal.com]

Moral of the story: Shorten their school day, keep a regular sleep schedule even if you didn't get much sleep. :3

[ari-meh.livejournal.com]

Shorten their school day

my korean classmates said that during high school they had classes from 7am till 11pm... and when they finally got home, they had to do homework DDDD:

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

wtf

[shimizumiki.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. ;o; My Korean friend said most of the homework wasn't even from real school, but from her after school cram school and it's like... oh. Something's wrong with that. The differences in intelligence scores aren't different enough from Korea to schools that have shorter days to justify having the days being so long...

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

WHAT. But, sorry, I don't know much about Korea's education system - is that from 'schedule' only school hours or school + extra activities or whatever their parents sign them up to do? :|

That's crazy, anyways. I don't think I'd be able to handle that, tbh.

[hoyah.livejournal.com]

it's definitely including the extra academy classes (hagwon) that they attend. school day generally goes till 2? 3? sometimes 4 i think.

[jaded-skys.livejournal.com]

4 on Tuesdays; for some reason there's an extra classes in there at the end of the day.

[hoyah.livejournal.com]

that might be waht i'm thinking of. though i get kids at 4, obviously.

[jaded-skys.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is with all the extra stuff. School goes from about 9 until 3:30 (if we're including classroom cleaning time), and from there the other classes are all extra.

[hoyah.livejournal.com]

it's hagwons. not all students can afford hagwon, but yes - those whose parents can afford it generally do stay that late at school.

[nyappnyappcafe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard the same. If they cut school hours, even if it were only 2-3 hours, they could get some slightly decent sleep. After my 8am classes, I'm already prepared to fall into bed during my break.

[lobotronic.livejournal.com]

absolutely true. when regular school ends they go to academies to study more, or extra classes with private tutors.

[yolleh.livejournal.com]

school-age children and adolescents should sleep at least nine hours per night

Lol I haven't had anymore than 7 hours of sleep per night in years.
I don't remember a time were I wasn't a zombie.


Poor kids though, they get worked so unbelievably hard :(

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

Good thing my mom was very strict during my elementary days. I slept around 7:30 pm in the evening and wake up by 5 am. High school wasn't that hard so I was able to get more sleep and now that I'm in college, sleeping = heaven, but right now due to pressure, it's like telling you that you need to study more

[ari-meh.livejournal.com]

and that's why i sleep for + 12h everyday during the holidays (:
gotta fill up my sleep account!

[hellicoptajuuce.livejournal.com]

really? i do pretty well on 6 hours a night but it's usually a bit hard to get out of bed lol, im still recovering from non stop activities last week, going to cramp in as much sleep tomorrow and on friday

[ashiva.livejournal.com]

Solution: Take your kids out of those damn hagwons because when your kid gets enough sleep he/she is actually able to learn enough by going to normal school and doing the homework after it.

[madelyn93.livejournal.com]

i have this theory that how sleepy i feel during the day depends on how much light i'm exposed to when i wake up.

last semester i woke up at 8 for class and i was always energized. this sem i have to wake up before 7 for class and i can barely make it to the second class before i fall asleep.

waking up at 6.30 and waking up at 8 makes a world of difference! even if i had the same amount of sleep, waking up when the sun is up makes me feel less tired.

[lightframes.livejournal.com]

i have this theory that how sleepy i feel during the day depends on how much light i'm exposed to when i wake up.

I agree. Getting up at 7 or 7:30 is easy during the late summer and early spring because the sun's already coming up, but here in the wintertime it's still dark until about 7:45. Makes it so hard to get up.

[kittycurious.livejournal.com]

how sleepy i feel during the day depends on how much light i'm exposed to when i wake up.

I totally agree. When my sleep schedule is really messed up I can stay awake for maybe 12 hours, the majority of it spent during the night, and when the sun starts to rise I get really sleepy. But if I wake up when the sun rises, I can easily last 16+ hours before getting tired. I also find waking up at certain times messes with how sleepy/energized I am. If I wake up at 7 I'll be energized, but if I wake up at 10 I'll be sleepy.

[pancakeonmyhead.livejournal.com]

school-age children and adolescents should sleep at least nine hours per night
SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THIS TO MY FATHER, HE SEEMS TO THINK I SHOULD ONLY BE GETTING 6 HOURS A NIGHT.

[laeryn.livejournal.com]

During my high school days I used to get 6-7 hours of sleep, and it did work for me. It is true that I did catch up with sleep on weekends and holidays, but it wasn't a major break of my routines, more like it became one.

Though, my daily schedule wasn't as packed as Korean high schoolers' seem to be, too.

[hellicoptajuuce.livejournal.com]

actually i used to function properly on 4 hours during high school, i dont know how that worked though :S

[akaich0u.livejournal.com]

High school isn't really challenging enough to need much more than that. Once you get to college (and esp. grad school, sobs) though, 3 nights at 4 hrs per night will wipe you out, definitely. Especially if you have to go to lab in addition to lecture :'(

[hoyah.livejournal.com]

for the average school age kid, maybe 9 hours is what they should be getting. but not everyone functions the same. in all honesty, i never needed more than 6. and more than that actually made me too tired.

[hellafun.livejournal.com]

god i love sleeping, i've been sleeping a lot while i'm on my break, gonna have to get used to little or no sleep soon D:

[youlittle.livejournal.com]

me too :(

[goshipgurl.livejournal.com]

9 hours per night are too much for me tbh. Im fine with 4 hours of sleep, i even went to school with only 2 hours of sleep and it was fine. But 4-5 hours is enough for me. On weekends i tend too sleep more, like 10-11 hours but mostly because i go to bed later and sleep until 1 or 2 pm lol. Right now im on my summerbreak and i slept everyday for about 12 hours but thats too much for me because im still tired after getting up, and my friend once told me that if you seep more than 7 hours you will automatically feel tired again.

[hanhajin08.livejournal.com]

i actually do this. I get 7 hours of sleep for the weekdays and during my weekends my little sister would ask me why I wouldn't do chores with her. I sleep from morning to 5 pm.

but i'm still sleepy during the morning that I even sleep during classes. lmfao
I usually sleep during Chemistry class. There was even a time I slept while taking down notes in front of the teacher. lol

[akaich0u.livejournal.com]

Maybe they just don't know how to study efficiently yet. That was true for me until even up til late in my sophomore year of college. Once you know how to study effectively and efficiently, the extra sleep DOES help.

5-6 hrs is usually what I get every weeknight too...8-9 or even 10 on weekends. Only then can I get the 10-11 hrs of studying I get done on weekends. It works, yo.

[sol-superstar.livejournal.com]

Hahaha I have to have my sleep. Even when I'm back at uni, sleep is a priority. I take regular naps~

[fibfables.livejournal.com]

SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK

[pivotandsway.livejournal.com]

I was always taught that you can't really ever "catch up" on sleep.

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

ok sorry gotta be super pedantic for a sec here. if the whole basis of this analysis is that "sleep a lot on weekends = the person is sleep-deprived" then it's flawed.

if you want to do stats on sleep-deprived people then do it on sleep-deprived people, not people who sleep a lot on weekends. they could just be in snorlax mode who knows

not that i don't agree with the findings or whatever but it's just a stupid way to set up an experiment if they really did it that way lol

[invisibelle.livejournal.com]

on 2nd reading i think this is likely derptastic writing, not the experiment, but can't really tell based on the article.

[annhh.livejournal.com]

More sleep for children/young adults, sleeping is a part of the study process. simple as that. I don't even know how people can live from 3-5 hours of sleep on a regular basis. At the moment, after 4 hours of sleep it's taking me FOREVAR to write this comment.

When I was younger I needed more sleep but now I survive with whatever. well I can survive but staying up 2 days straight does not look good on me.

[sincronia.livejournal.com]

lmao omg this is the story of my life.

[omgtiffa.livejournal.com]

+1

[xblackchristmas.livejournal.com]

then fml i already messed up for 6 years LOL. like 3 hours of sleep on each weekday and sleep for 13 hours on the weekend days.

[kittycurious.livejournal.com]

I find I function best with 7 hours of sleep, and when I wake up really matters. I could go to bed at 12 and wake up at 7 and feel fine, but if I go to bed at 3 and wake up at 10 I still feel sleepy.

Everyone needs a different about of sleep. Some people function better on less and some people need more. My sister needs about 12 hours just to function.