Drinking a small
glass of milk, quiet reading, or watching a late night talk
show. Guess which one of these common bedtime rituals might
keep you from getting enough sleep. According to a new study,
we'd be better off spending our last conscious hours of
the day with the mug of milk or a good book than we would
be if we watched Jay Leno or David Letterman.
The study, published in the journal of the Japanese Society
of Sleep Research, found that media use before bedtime may
cause sleep problems. Sixty-two percent of the 7,000 participants
in the survey reported having insufficient sleep, and almost
half of those lacking enough rest were heavy media users.
The most important findings concerned the duration of sleep
for light media users as compared to heavy media users.
The heavy media users - who used media three hours longer
each night than the light group did - complained of sleep
problems almost twice as often. The lead author of the study,
Dr. Nakamori Suganama, offered a possible explanation: "I
suppose media use not only affects sleep duration, but also
sleep demand and sleep quality."
Another study published earlier this year in the same journal
suggests that TV viewing affects young people's sleep patterns
even more than it does for adults. When university students
in the study had to cut their TV time to 30 minutes per
day, they went to bed earlier and slept longer than they
had during their normal routine.
Although the first study shows heavy media use causes sleep
problems for people of all ages, insufficient sleep is a
bigger problem for kids. Simply put, children and teenagers
need sleep more, and they need more of it, than adults do.
That's because kids' growing bodies and developing brains
need rest at night, a chance to recharge for another exciting
day.
Getting enough sleep is extremely important for bodily and
mental health. Research has shown that anyone who is even
somewhat sleep deprived may have difficulty focusing, reasoning,
driving safely, learning, and working. Other research has
found that sleep involves as many as fifty different hormones
and other brain chemicals. Everything needs to be in balance
for us to sleep peacefully through the night. When those
chemicals are out of balance, sleep is disrupted and we
can have problems with memory and stress. In other words,
if we watch TV, play video games or surf the Internet at
night to wind down, we may actually be winding ourselves
up.
If we needed even more proof that we should keep screens
out of kids' bedrooms, the Japanese Society of Sleep Research
has given it to us. But these studies tell us even more.
They tell us we should rely on the old standbys of bedtime
stories, nighttime songs, and winding down at the end of
the day. And as always, media use can be great, in limited
amounts. It's best to shut down the computer, turn off the
TV and curl up with a book long before it's time to turn
out the lights.
David Walsh, Ph.D. is the founder of the
MediaWise Movement, a program of the National Institute
on Media and the Family (www.mediawise.org).
His latest book, No: Why Kids - of All Ages - Need to
Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It (Free Press) is
available in bookstores.
