9th August, 2019

Did you know that this week is Sleep Awareness Week?

It is well known that sleep is important. Every animal on the planet sleeps, and although scientists don't exactly know why we sleep, they do know that sleep is vital for our physical and mental restoration. Sleep is important in preparing the brain for learning and remembering new information. A lack of sleep reduces our ability to learn, pay attention to tasks and make well thought out decisions. Poor sleep and irregular sleep/wake times can affect the academic performance of students.

Sleep plays a vital role in forming memories and creative thinking

Sleep is important for learning, memory and creativity:

• Sleep helps to prepare our brain for learning new things. When we are well rested we can pay better attention to new information that we come across in our daily experiences.

• Sleep will help make new information ‘stick’. During sleep, the brain replays memories from the day, making the neural connections stronger. This helps us remember the things we experienced when we were awake. Different stages of sleep play a role in forming different types of memory, such as learning “how” to do something (like playing a piano) compared to learning facts.

• Sleep also helps our creativity, helping us find new solutions to problems by looking at things in a new way while we sleep. You may have heard people say they will ‘sleep on it’ in order to solve a problem or make a decision.

A lack of sleep can impact brain performance

We all know what it’s like when we don’t get enough sleep – we can feel foggy in the head the next day. It can be hard to concentrate on tasks, learn new things or use our memory effectively. In fact, if you have been awake for 18 hours, your reaction time and ability to concentrate is similar to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. We also see a dip in performance on reaction time tasks in the early hours of the morning (2 - 4am), as well as in the early afternoon (2 - 4pm) when we are often less alert. It is important that shift workers are aware of these dips if they are working through the night or coping with sleep deprivation. Safety may be an issue.

Sleep loss can also affect our ability to make sound decisions. Researchers have shown that if we reduce sleep to 5 hours per night over a week people make more risky decisions on a gambling task, act more impulsively and have poorer judgement (compared to those allowed to sleep for 8 hours each night).

Brain scan studies show that when we are sleep deprived, the parts of the brain that help us weigh up negative outcomes are less active, while those areas that process positive outcomes are more active. Thus, we are less able to make sound decisions and successfully assess risk when we lack sleep. As a result, we may be more prone to accidents, injuries and errors at work and on the road.

Can sleep disorders affect memory and thinking?

People with untreated sleep disorders often report trouble concentrating, remembering information or completing daily tasks (e.g. shopping lists). Studies show they do not perform as well on memory tasks, such as remembering a list of words, compared to healthy adults without a sleep disorder. They also have more difficulty recalling memories from their own lives (i.e. autobiographical memory). The good news is, that if your sleep disorder is effectively treated many of the problems you experience in memory and thinking will improve.

Can sleep issues affect academic performance?

Students commonly do not get adequate sleep. Sleepiness and poor sleep quality are widespread among high school and university students. This can affect their academic performance and daytime functioning (e.g. concentration). Research tells us that university students who have symptoms of a sleep disorder are more likely to receive poorer grades than students without such symptoms. Also, we know that high school students who have more variable bedtimes and wake times have poorer school performance.

Therefore, getting enough sleep each night and trying to go to bed and get up at around the same time each day is vital to students’ academic success.

This information is taken from the Sleep Health Foundation

www.sleephealthfoundation.org.au

Further information

www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/how-lack-sleep-impactscognitive-performance-and-focus

http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/matters/benefits-ofsleep/learning-memory

Parenting Ideas Article

The Worst Feeling for a Child

By Michael Grose

Humans are social by nature. We are happiest and most productive when we’re in groups. The family we are born into stays together rather than disbands as can happen in the animal world. This togetherness ensures a sense of belonging. Parental acceptance and forgiveness confirms that a child belongs unconditionally to their family, providing a deep sense of security and safety.

As they grow older their social world expands to include broader family, friends and others within our community. The ties that bind are a little more tenuous at the outer edges. Unlike in a family, a child’s acceptance or a teen’s acceptance by peers is conditional and as such, friendships can quickly change. Differing interests, unresolved grievances and changing personalities can lead to peer relationship breakdowns resulting in feelings of loss and sadness for a child.

The flip side of acceptance is loss, when valued relationships flounder. This is normal. It can be heartbreaking for a parent to watch their child or teen deal with the feelings of sadness but that’s when parents need to be supportive and emotionally present.

Worse still for children and young people is when a relationship breakdown with friends leads to ostracism, or being left out of the usual group activities. Sadness due to friendship loss is a normal part of life. Feeling devastated by being left out of a group is not acceptable, and shouldn’t be shrugged off as normal.

Ostracism hits at the very heart of being human – the need to belong. It hits at a young person’s sense of security and safety. Continued ostracism generally leads to feelings of helplessness in a child or young person, the worst possible emotion they can experience.

Teaching kids about relationships

Psychologist and author Collett Smart in her Teach girls to build each other up webinar maintains that parents should proactively teach kids about how relationships work. She was referring to parents of girls in particular, but boys too can benefit from learning about the nature of friendships. This relationship work can be both incidental and intentional. Smart maintains that we need to be continuously talking to kids about what makes a good friend; that not all friendships last; how they can break up kindly with friends and how they can assertively and respectfully stand up for themselves rather than be dominated by others.

Learning how to argue well

Smart maintains that learning how to argue is a normal part of healthy relationships. She says, “We haven’t’ taught girls how to be assertive. They learn to be assertive at home. Give girls opportunities to disagree with us as parents so that they can be brave enough for them to do so outside of home with their friends.” Parents need to give kids healthy ways to express their emotions and frustrations about friendships so that they can learn to resolve conflict without taunting, being abusive or giving someone the ‘permanent cold shoulder’.

Above all, we need to let kids know that ostracism of a former friend or of another child is not acceptable under any circumstances. The conversation that parents have with children about ostracism carries a great deal of weight and needs to happen from a very young age before these relationships patterns emerge and become entrenched in adolescence.

Katrina Spicer

Assistant Principal - Welfare and Wellbeing

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