Is the secret to good behavior in children a little extra shut-eye?
A new study finds that kids are more likely to be alert and less likely to be disruptive if they added an extra 27 minutes to their nightly sleep schedules.
“In daily life, if you think of the impact of short power naps, usually about 15 to 20 minutes during the day, you can see that this amount of sleep can have a significant positive impact on mood, attention, and well-being,” study author Dr. Reut Gruber, director of the attention behavior and sleep lab at the Douglas Institute at McGill University, in Quebec, said to WebMD.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends that children ages 5 through 12 get 10 to 11 hours of sleep each day. However, the researchers behind the new study say that most school-aged children don’t even get to bed until after 9 p.m., and 43 percent of boys aged 10 to 11 sleep less than the advised nightly amount.
Lack of sleep can cause mood swings, behavioral problems like hyperactivity and cognitive problems, according to the foundation.
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The new study looked at 34 kids between the ages of 7 to 11 who had no sleep, medical, behavior or academic problems who averaged about nine hours of sleep a night. Half the children had their bedtimes moved up one hour and the other children had their bedtimes moved back an hour for five nights. The children wore actigraphs to record their sleep times. For the full story, click here.
