A few days away from back to school, 17-year-old student Juan Rocha Dominguez is trying to get back to his routine: waking up early and going to school. He finished high school, but will start pre-university course. “Last year I went to bed around 10:30 pm and woke up at 5:30 am every day. On vacation, I’m going to bed later and waking up late, I’ve lost the cool rhythm. Now I’m trying to get back to the rhythm I had when I was in class, going to bed earlier and waking up earlier too.” 
The student, who is preparing for the entrance exam in medicine, also says that he used to wake up at dawn to study more. “I ended up waking up at dawn to study more because of nervousness, I was anxious for the test and wanted to make sure I knew everything to do well. After I took the test, I stopped being anxious and sleep came.”
The habit is not adequate, explains the pediatrician and researcher at the Instituto do Sono, Gustavo Moreira. “If the reduction in sleep time is substantial, this could have an impact on intellectual activity and academic performance. This is common in Asian countries. There is no magic number of hours of sleep to guide a young person. The important thing is that he reduce daytime leisure activities and study. That way, you won’t have to wake up in the middle of the night.
Sleep is important for growth, development, learning and emotional regulation. Therefore, the expert suggests several fundamental strategies for those who want to sleep well. “At the beginning of classes, it is important that students return to the sleep habits of the class period, avoid sleeping late and waking up late as on vacation. Every night, about three or four nights before the start of classes, the schedule is tightened, if you usually sleep at 2 am, make a day to sleep at 1 am, then at midnight, at 11 am, at 10 am, until find the ideal time, and for that, you will have to wake up earlier, which is important. Another important aspect is not to sleep in the afternoon, because if you sleep in the afternoon, you will not sleep at night.”
sleep hygiene
For the doctor, good sleep hygiene for children and adolescents includes sleeping at the appropriate time. “Children of preschool and school age, that is, before the age of 12, should go to bed before 9 pm. Teens can sleep until 10pm. Before going to sleep, a couple of hours before bed, it is important to reduce the amount of lights in the house, not to do physical activities and, mainly, to turn off the screens: TV, cell phone, computer, tablet, all this has that light that goes into the eyes and goes telling our brain that it’s daytime. So, it is important to turn off these devices, apart from their content, which is always very stimulating”, recommends Moreira.
The sleep routine is important for telling the brain it’s time to sleep, says the pediatrician. “Two hours before, reduce the amount of activities in the house, turn off the electronics and do calmer activities and a sequence of events that takes the child to sleep, a kiss good night, a prayer, go to the bathroom, brush your teeth , go to the bedroom. For the small child, he sings a song, for the older one he tells a story, for the teenager he tells him to read a book, the important thing is that this routine is repeated in a way that gives information to the brain that it is time to sleep on time. adequate.”
social jet lag
According to the doctor, this regularity is important, because many students who wake up early to go to school, stay in bed later on weekends, in an attempt to compensate for sleep deprivation. It’s the call jet lag Social.
“THE jet lag social is a sequence of events that make up the weekday and weekend activities that are very different, and it simulates a transmeridional trip, as if the individual went to the other side of the world and came back, because there is a difference in time zones . Children and adolescents sleep little during the week, we see this especially in adolescents, instead of getting nine hours of sleep, they get six or seven hours of sleep. He lacks sleep and when the weekend arrives, he makes up for it: if during the week he sleeps from midnight to 6 am, on the weekend he sleeps from 2 am to noon. So, this difference that replaces the jet lag social, we know that more than two hours already represents a sleep deficit.”
Again, the sleep routine will help to avoid the jet lag Social. “The routine of going to bed at the appropriate times for the age and always sleeping at the same time, at most an hour apart from weekdays and weekends, is what will help you avoid that social jat lag that is very frequent, a third of teenagers have this problem”.
The doctor explains that teenagers have a greater need for sleep than adults and are sleepier. “It is not normal for teenagers to need to sleep in the afternoon, if it happens it is because they may be sleeping little at night, less than nine hours. The afternoon nap, made by the teenager, is used to compensate for the fact that he sleeps little at night. This is a scenario that leads to the jet lag Social. As he sleeps in the afternoon, he will not sleep at night, he will sleep late. It becomes a vicious cycle. On the weekend it will compensate, waking up at noon on Saturday and Sunday (having more hours of sleep). You won’t be able to sleep early on Sunday night.” It reinforces the vicious cycle. In math, the young woman is tired and sleepy as the week progresses, as her sleep deprivation worsens.”
Juan’s sister, 14-year-old student Julia Rocha Dominguez, is an exception. She says that she rarely sleeps in the afternoon, only when the day has been very tiring. “On vacation, the routine doesn’t change that much, it’s hard for me to stay awake after midnight, I always end up waking up at 5 am, but I manage to go back to sleep for longer.”
She says she follows a sleep routine. “I do exercises to loosen my jaw, since because of my bruxism, which increases a lot during class time, I have to wear a very uncomfortable dental plate. Regarding the screens, my glasses have blue light protection and my computer is set to change the brightness when it goes past 9 pm, this helps me to slow down.”
sleep deprivation
Sleep deprivation can compromise school performance because it impacts the prefrontal cortex, which runs higher brain functions, including language, working memory, logical thinking, and creativity. It reduces alertness and impairs attention, slowing cognitive processing. In addition, it causes mood swings, such as irritability, depression and also obesity, explains the doctor.
“Sleep deprivation has several consequences, the first is that brain activities are not adequate, memory is bad, mood changes, the individual cannot concentrate on his things, if he is an adult who operates a machine, he may have an accident, the young man who is riding a bicycle, may be injured. It also compromises the metabolism, the organism of the individual who is sleeping little understands that he is in a situation of stress, and what [o organismo] does? It increases appetite, so there is an imbalance between all the satiety and hunger hormones, this imbalance causes the individual to eat more, so sleep deprivation also increases obesity, both in adults and in children”, warns Moreira. .
Strategies for better sleep
– physical exercises should be avoided at night
– do relaxing activities before going to bed
– storytelling and singing lullabies help to relax younger children
– Card or board games are a good form of family entertainment involving older children.
– teenagers can be encouraged to listen to music or devote themselves to reading
