Sleep-deprived moms is a common trope we can probably all relate to. On this episode, we speak with Dr. Tiffany Rogers, a PhD in behavioral neuroscience. She walks us through what the brain does while we’re asleep (hint: it’s not just shut off!) and why sleep for us and our children should be a priority.
Matt Walker has a superb TED talk about sleep. He’s the author of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep & Dreams. In his presentation, he says men who sleep only 4-5 hours/night have smaller testicles & lower testosterone than those who sleep 7-8 hrs. There are similar reported reproductive effects for women. Does that get your attention?
We need sleep after learning to “hit the save button” on memories. We also need it before learning. The ‘all-nighter’ study session isn’t the best. In fact, it actually works against you. After an all-nighter, there was a 40% deficit in the brain’s ability to make new memories (remember facts) without sleep. This means it’s probably better for your teen to just turn off the light & go to bed than cram an extra 2 hours for that chemistry exam. When we are in deep sleep (REM), brainwaves shift things from short-term to long-term memory.
Our brain’s hippocampus is our “info in box”. With sleep, it shows lots of activity. Without sleep, hardly any activity is registered. Your hippocampus can actually SHRINK. There is research showing flight attendants who have regular long flights sans sleep have smaller hippocampuses (hippocampi???) than others.
With aging, our memory/learning declines at the same time our sleep gets worse. Don’t just co-occur but they’re RELATED. This has lots of implications for dementia/alzheimers, but it’s actually encouraging since sleep is something we CAN conceivably control and improve.
Sleep affects our brains and also our entire body. Daylight savings time provides a prime example of this! When we lose an hour of sleep in the spring, there’s a 24% increase in heart attacks reported in ERs the following day! In the fall, hospitals report a 21% reduction in heart attacks. The same goes for traffic accidents (sleepy drivers!) and suicide rates (mood changes).
Sleep affects our immune systems—giving us a 70% drop in immune protections when sleep is only 4 hrs. The WHO has now classified any form of night shift work as a probable carcinogen! It disrupts our rhythms so much.
Shorter sleep = shorter life.
It’s a biological necessity; not a sign of laziness to need it. In light of all this, if we want healthy children, we need them to sleep well. As parents, it should be one of our priorities to help our children sleep and sleep well, and to (as far as it’s possible) prioritize sleep in our own lives, even above crossing those to-do’s off our lists.
BABIES:
Owlet surveyed its product users and found that nearly half of parents with children under 6 months reported getting only 1-3 hrs uninterrupted sleep/night.
A scant 5% of parents with newborns – 6 months get 8 hours. No surprise: moms get less than dads. 32% say dads never get out of bed to check on/respond to baby.
Children aged 1-4 months need 14-15 hrs/day. By 6 weeks, more regular patterns emerge; day & night reversal is typically gone
4-12 months 14-15/hrs. Typically 3 naps and drop to 2 naps/day around 6 months. Mid-morning around 9 am (1-2 hrs), and early afternoon (btwn 12-2) for an hour or so. Late afternoon (3-5 pm) maybe one more.
18-21 months—transition from am and pm nap to only one/day
Keep that one/day nap typically until Kindergarten
In a January 2018 article on CNN Health’s website, sleep patterns for children around the world were reported.
- New Zealand, United Kingdom, and Australia all reported the earliest bedtimes: before 8pm for kids ages 0-3. (United States was almost 9pm.)
- South Korea, Taiwan, India, and HOng Kong reported the latest bedtimes: 10pm or a bit later.
“The Dutch parents in our studies strongly supported a cultural rule of ‘rest, regularity and cleanliness – which entailed establishing a firm routine featuring plenty of sleep on a regular schedule from an early age.”
Conclusion: “Children who have consistent bedtime routines not only sleep better, but it also promotes things like literacy, attachment, language, bonding and self-care – all the things that we want children to have, whether or not they live in India or whether they live in the United States,” she said.
Babies— eat/wake/sleep cycle that helps them learn not to have to fall asleep by nursing/eating; can sleep solidly by 8 weeks unless growth spurts or teething.
ADOLESCENTS:
Need 8-10 hrs but 4/5 get far less. Their brains are on a circadian delay. Teenagers have trouble falling asleep before 11 p.m. because of a shift in melatonin, the hormone that helps regulate sleep, in their brains. They fall asleep around 11 pm or later and then have an early start at school.
March 2013, The Washington Post reported:
A new study of a few thousand students found that homeschoolers get more sleep than students at traditional public and private schools. What are the consequences? It may be that home-schooled students are better prepared to learn on a daily basis because they get more sleep, researchers said.
The study was conducted by researchers at National Jewish Health in Denver, who studied the sleep patterns of 2,612 students, including nearly 500 homeschoolers. Home-schooled adolescents slept an average of 1 1/2 hours more per night than students in brick-and-mortar private and public schools. Students in the traditional schools started class, on average, 18 minutes before the home-schooled kids, on average, got up in the morning.
Sleep researchers have said for years that teenagers have different biorhythms than younger and older people, and have a hard time going to bed before 11 p.m. Then they have to get up early to get to high school, which often starts well before 7:30. As a result, the majority of teens don’t get the 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 hours of sleep that experts say they should, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
The study concluded:
- 55 percent of teens who were home-schooled got the optimal amount of sleep per week
- 24.5 percent of students at traditional public and private schools got the optimal amount of sleep per week.
ALCOHOL (& pot): more prevalent among people who get too little sleep and lack of sleep CAUSES many of the mood disorders ppl tend to medicate with alcohol. Bi-directional.
Alcohol is a sedative so you fall asleep quicker (sleep aid) BUT it disrupts your cycle b/c as it’s processed, it stimulates arousal centers. People who drink report falling asleep but waking up in the middle of the night unable to fall BACK asleep.
Pot is the same. Drinking & pot may “chill you out” (so you use it if you’re anxious, stressed, etc.) but it changes your body chemistry so you end up feeling MORE stressed/anxious later and tend to smoke/drink again.
ADULTS:
Mayo Clinic website notes a possible link between sleep loss and weight gain.
Research suggests an association between sleep restriction and negative changes in metabolism. In adults, sleeping four hours a night, compared with 10 hours a night, appears to increase hunger and appetite — in particular for calorie-dense foods high in carbohydrates. Observational studies also suggest a link between sleep restriction and obesity. Other studies have found similar patterns in children and adolescents.
One explanation might be that sleep duration affects hormones regulating hunger — ghrelin and leptin. Another contributing factor might be that lack of sleep leads to fatigue and results in less physical activity.
NYTimes article talks about how to identify your sleep needs:
Want to really identify your individual sleep needs? Try this “sleep vacation” experiment. To do this, you will need two weeks when you don’t have somewhere to be at a specific time in the morning. If you have a flexible job, you can do this any time, or you may have to wait until a vacation.
The experiment requires a little discipline:
- Pick the same bedtime every night.
- Turn off your alarm.
- Record the time you wake up.
Chances are, you will sleep longer during the first few days, because you are catching up on lost sleep, so the first few days of data won’t be useful. But over the course of a few weeks, if you stick to the scheduled bedtime and allow yourself to wake up naturally, you’ll begin to see a pattern emerge of how many hours of sleep your body needs each night.
If you have sleep issues, avoid alcohol and caffeine (esp after lunch). Avoid daytime naps. Cooler temps are better –sleep at 65 degrees. You can keep a sleep log and stop using an alarm to see how much sleep you are getting.
TIPS FOR BETTER SLEEP:
REGULARITY is key….same bedtime, same wake time; even on weekends. This is the NUMBER ONE MOST IMPORTANT factor in better sleep.
Schedule around sleep; not the other way around.
Turn the temperature down. 65 degrees F is optimal for falling asleep quickly and maintaining sleep.
Set the stage: after dinner, music down, prep for what you need in am, blackout curtains, white noise…
BE Consistent…catching up on weekends won’t make up for chronic lack. Toward the end of summer, shift bedtimes for school start.
THINGS TO CONSIDER AS A PARENT:
Moms—schlepping kids around Walmart at 9-10pm are asking for terrible behavior the next day. Tired toddlers/kids are not well-behaved or apt to learn well.
Weekend at grandparents—pay for this for days afterwards (not doing child or their parents any favors!)
Sleepovers—pay for this for days afterwards (same for youth events where they’re up until early hours)
Effect of security on sleep….. kids have an innate need to know their world is secure. If the only time they can see mom/dad working together or being together is in the middle of the night or at mealtimes, that’s when you can see behavior issues…. Show them mom/dad are ok during the day in a concrete way (couch time)