This is a follow up to my two columns in CommonHealth offering a brief list of resources related to sleep and adolescents. A subject that has not been addressed by the school systems in Greater Boston. The evidence on the case of sleeping is overwhelming but few schools are responding accordingly. The article by the New York Times is a good tool for parents to bring the attention of superintendents and principals. Time for a change.
New York Times: The sputtering, nearly 20-year movement to start high schools later has recently gained momentum in communities like this one, as hundreds of schools in dozens of districts across the country have bowed to the accumulating research on the adolescent body clock.
Research Evidence Selected Resources
- Progress in Brain Research: Sleep’s effects on cognition and learning in adolescence.
- NASSP Bulletin: Changing times: Findings from the first longitudinal study of later high school times.
- Child Development: To study or to sleep? The academic costs of extra studying at the expense of sleep.
- Contemporary Pediatrics: A look at adolescents sleep needs: Wake up to the unique sleep needs of adolescents
- Preventive Medicine: Relationships between hours of sleep and health-risk behaviors in relationships between hours of sleep and health-risk behaviors.
- Journal of Adolescence: Sleepless in adolescence: Prospective data on sleep deprivation, health and functioning.
- American Psychological Association: Sleep deprivation may be undermining teen health.
- National Sleep Association: Later School Start Times
Great suggestion by one of my twitter friends on sleep and adolescents in GoPubMed
