Why Sleep Matters for Kids’ Bodies and Brains

It’s hard to overstate the importance of sleep for our well-being. When our sleep is disrupted, we become become more susceptible to illness and more likely to suffer cognitive impairment, poor work performance, and withdrawal and loneliness.

This is especially true for our children, says Rafael Pelayo, a sleep expert at the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center. Children who get insufficient sleep can become irritable and grumpy, have problems concentrating in school and studying, and have poorer immune function. They may even experience delayed growth.

It’s probably not surprising, then, that sleep also affects mental health.

For example, it’s well known that one of the signs of depression involves changes in sleep. One pattern called “Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome” (where someone is off a typical sleep schedule by two hours or more) has been tied to atypical depression, which doesn’t respond well to anti-depressants, says Pelayo. Luckily, reverting to a normal sleep pattern can help alleviate depressive symptoms, he says, underscoring why treating sleep seriously could improve mental health.

Sleep problems can also make children less attentive, which hurts their ability to learn and may result in a diagnosis of attention deficit disorder. However, if a child has obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (a pattern where one stops and starts breathing throughout the night), treating that directly can help make a child more attentive without needing to prescribe drugs, says Pelayo.

Poor sleep affects a child’s executive functioning, too, so that teens who get less sleep become more impulsive, he says. That means they might be more apt to take drugs, do crimes, or take risks sexually. It can also mean they are at higher risk of suicide.

“Mental health and sleep impact each other, and you can get these vicious cycles,” says Pelayo.

Kids don’t sleep enough

While there are many benefits to having healthy sleep patterns, most kids don’t get enough sleep and are sleep-deprived. It doesn’t help that many of us don’t prioritize sleep enough—either for ourselves or our children.

Older children—like teenagers—are often assigned several hours of homework that keeps them up late studying. They may be unaware of how much sleep loss they are experiencing or how negatively it’s affecting them. Pelayo suggests this is due to the way sleep loss triggers the release of cortisol (the stress hormone), making people feel giddy or excited—a kind of high that might give them a boost of energy and hide their exhaustion.

But no one can sustain a loss of sleep over time, he adds. While teens may think that they can just make up for lost sleep on the weekends when they have more free time, this doesn’t work for their body’s needs.

What parents can do

What can we do to protect children’s sleep? Pelayo says that while sleep is a biological necessity, sleep habits are learned. That’s where parents can play an important role. First, they need to understand the necessity of sleep and pay attention when their kids seem sleepy at odd times or have trouble getting up in the morning.

More on Children and Sleep

Parents should try to role-model good sleep habits themselves, Pelayo says.

Pelayo says that four variables predict our sleep schedule: social interactions, exercise, light, and food, which spell the acronym SELF. For example, he says, if our kids stay up late to study or socialize, chances are they’re also snacking on food, which messes with their body’s energy needs and sleep cycle. By helping youth experience these variables in a more regular pattern, Pelayo can often solve children’s sleep problems.

Excerpted from “Why Sleep Matters for Kids’ Bodies and Brains” in Greater Good Magazine. Read the full article online.

Source: Greater Good Magazine | Why Sleep Matters for Kids’ Bodies and Brains, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_sleep_matters_for_kids_bodies_and_brains | © 2023 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

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