A summer of relaxation and fun can make for lifelong memories for kids in their journey through life.
Although an important part of development, the leisurely pace to summer can get students off their routines that are implemented during the school year. That schedule calls for teens to balance assignments, extracurricular activities and a social calendar in a time when many are still learning about responsibility and time management.
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Duke Health pediatric neurologist Sujay Kansagra and UNC Health family physician Victoria Boggiano have some guidance for kids trying to get enough sleep before class after a summer of relaxation and fun. Both agree that a proper routine and adequate sleep can serve as a catalyst for kids looking to be engaged and focused on their studies.
Why is getting enough sleep important?
VB: We often know that getting too little sleep can be kind of detrimental to feeling well and sometimes getting too much sleep can actually really kind of impede our ability to feel energized and refreshed and so we really try to target that amount of sleep and adjust.
SK: One of my mottos is: "sleep is important, but it's not important enough to lose sleep over."
Don't get so invested in how perfect your sleep should be that you end up worsening it. And then I also say take time to make sleep a priority, and don't treat it like a luxury. Everybody seems to, you know, plan their sleep around how busy they are during the day. And I say try to plan your day around the sleep that you need, because it's not a luxury. Your body needs it. Carve out enough time to get your full sleep need every night.
How much sleep should each age group get?
VB: For adults, that’s 7 to 9 hours. I have a 14-month-old and for him it's 11 to 14 hours. I’m going to reference a chart that I love to pull up from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. When we have a newborn, they should be sleeping for 14 to 17 hours. They should spend most of their time sleeping, and it may be appropriate for them to sleep a little bit more, or maybe appropriate to sleep a little bit less.
Then we get into infants and toddlers, infants we're looking at like 12 to 15 hours. For toddlers, we're looking at 11 to 14 hours. Preschool is really 10 to 13 hours. School-age, 6- to 13-year-olds are elementary and middle schoolers. For them, we're looking for 9 to 11 hours, our teens are 8 to 10 hours, and adults need that 7 to 9 hour range.
Bright lights can help
SK: The main trigger that tells your body clock, your circadian rhythm, where it should be, is the timing of light exposure. So keeping things dim for 30 minutes prior to bed and getting lots of bright lights when you wake up in the morning can help get you adjusted for the school schedule.
The early morning exposure to light actually tells your body that this is the time you should be awake. And every day, we actually readjust our circadian rhythm slightly, because our natural circadian rhythm is longer than 24 hours, we think it's around 24.2 hours, and so that early morning light exposure says, nope, it's actually let's, let's move your body clock a little bit forward to make sure you're going to bed at the right time the next night.
When life happens, then what?
VB: There will be times when the routine is deviated from, and that's OK. But as much as it is reasonable and possible, maintain that routine, especially if you find that you have a child that's having a hard time sleeping.
It's important to be kind to ourselves and know that life is going to happen and that we strive to do the best that we can.
But if you find that it's a few hours past bedtime, don't just automatically assume "oh, tonight's shot, I'm going to get no quality sleep." It's still possible to really try to get that quality sleep. But there are things you can do to really set up routines so that good sleep is achieved and maintained.
How to deal with night-time anxiety?
SK: It's prevalent amongst all of us -- adults and young folks. There are a couple of things.
For one, we're always asking to figure out whether there is an underlying anxiety tendency amongst children that, for example, I treat in clinic, are they always kind of anxious? Or is this just specific to nighttime? If it's just specific to nighttime, then we work on strategies to make sure that children know how to come and relax their brains at night when they're lying in bed.
And this is not an easy thing, even for adults, but the hallmark of the approaches that we use is known as cognitive behavioral therapy towards insomnia. These are the techniques that help, kind of decrease nighttime thinking and worrying.
One easy thing is something called paradoxical intent, where by a lot of people are like, you know, worried. They're Rolodexing through their thoughts at nighttime, and then they try to tell themselves, "OK, brain just shut off. Go to sleep." They try to will themselves to sleep. And we know you can't really do that. It's not an on-off switch. And so as part of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, we tell folks, well, actually, think about the opposite.
Think about calmly staying awake in bed. Tell yourself, 'I'm just going to lie here awake, quietly and relaxed. Hey, look, I'm still awake. That's OK. That's what I'm trying to do.' That usually takes the pressure and anxiety off of trying to fall asleep. It helps them sleep.
Sometimes, we also recommend some light journaling during the day, giving yourself a time to actually think and worry during the day, to get out some of those thoughts, put them on some paper, because oftentimes when you're laying in bed, that's the only time of the day in our fast-paced world that you have time to think about these things. You're alone with your thoughts for the first time. And so we recommend trying to be alone with your thoughts at another time of the day to help decrease some of that at nighttime.
What impact does screen time have?
SK: We do have a lot of data that shows that screen use amongst children is harmful to a variety of sleep metrics. Our goal when it comes to your body clock is certainly avoiding too much bright light exposure at night, and there are a couple of factors that weigh how the color of light is important.
LED devices are notorious for giving off lots of blue light, which tends to disrupt sleep the most, because it tends to decrease melatonin the most. The brightness of that exposure is important, and the duration of the exposure is important. My goal is usually to keep things really dim and screen-free for 30 minutes prior to bed. That's usually enough of a window that your brain says, OK, it's now dark. It's time for sleep. Let's start making our own natural melatonin.
VB: I want to recognize that a lot of educational tools are using screens now. So there's a lot about screens that can be used for good in a variety of different educational settings. But specifically when we're talking about sleep and that stimulation can really be a detriment to that winding down process that we're using to try to go to sleep and then maintaining sleep and allowing ourselves to get into that REM sleep, that really deep sleep. I would say to the extent that's possible, especially if you have a kid that's having a harder time going to sleep, because it's really trying to stop screen time 2-to-3 hours before the intended bedtime. I know that can be really hard, but as much as you're able to realistically stop screens for a long period of time before bed, and then definitely try to avoid looking at a cell phone right before going to sleep.