"Can we stay up just a little longer?"
Well, there's evidence now that sleep deprivation brought about by even one less hour of sleep does make a difference in a how well a child learns the next day.
"Even minor changes in sleep ... can impair a school child's learning, memory, attention, concentration," researcher Avi Sadeh, DSc, director of the Laboratory for Children's Sleep and Arousal Disorders at Tel Aviv University, tells WebMD. His study appears in an issue of Child Development.
Young people are supposed to get a good 8-10 hours each night.
But the researchers said many children have missed out on 4,500 vital hours of shut-eye by the time they are age seven. And they blamed this on the fact that most kids have TVs and computers in their rooms, and that busy parents don't read to their younger children at night anymore. Children with TVs and other devices in their bedrooms were more likely to get a bad night's sleep, and more likely to get less than eight hours.
Even losing an hour's sleep a night can really hit a child's performance at school and effect their development, they found.
Six reasons to have a long lie-in from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/uk/ (04/03/06)
Sleep deprivation may cause obesity. A study published in the journal Sleep in 2004 found that those who slept nine hours or more had a significantly lower body mass than those who slept five hours or less.
People have some of their best ideas in bed. A study by the East of England Development Agency found that nearly a third of us think that we have our most creative thoughts when between the sheets.
Sleep may help you to live longer. Researchers from Pennsylvania State University believe that women may live longer than men because they sleep more soundly.
You can solve problems while you’re asleep. Scientists at Lübeck University, in Germany, have found that volunteers who could “sleep on” a number puzzle were much better at solving it than those kept awake.
Sleep may have a protective effect against cancer. Researchers from Stanford University, in California, think that the changing hormone balance of the body as it sleeps may be influential.
Sleep helps you to remember facts. Scientists from the University of Chicago discovered that volunteers who found their recall of memorised words letting them down at night could remember them the next morning if they slept well.
