During the second half of the semester, I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Stephanie Crowley’s research presentation titled “An Update on Adolescent Sleep: New Evidence Informing the Perfect Storm Model,”centering around the effect of sleep on young adolescents and how it can alter their circadian rhythm. This research highlighted how sleep and biological clocks affect how an adolescent interacts during hours of sleep as well as waking hours. This made me more interested in the research of how sleep can not only affect young adolescents throughout their week, but also, how their regulation and cognitive function can be altered as well due to irregular sleep patterns.
In a study done in 2011, the research described the two biological systems that go through modifications during maturation: sleep and regulation of the homeostatic process and the circadian rhythm. In Dr. Crowley’s research, the study focused on summarizing current progression and understanding how new progress affects and benefits our understanding of sleep modification and regulation and how behavior regarding sleep during the maturation phase has altered.
In a study titled “Cognitive Performance, Sleepiness, and Mood in Partially Sleep Deprived Adolescents: The Need for Sleep Study”, published in 2016, researchers found their participants demonstrating “incremental deterioration in sustained attention, working memory and executive function, increase in subjective sleepiness and decrease in positive mood” (Lo et a., 2016). This highlights how even just a week of sleep deprivation affects young adolescents’ executive cognitive functions as well as mental health, impacting their mood and alertness. They discovered that the sleep missed over the week-long sleep deprivation was not recovered even after 2 full nights of dedicated sleep recovery time. This demonstrates that in order for young adolescents to improve in many aspects of their daily functioning, appropriate sleep is demanded.
Similarly, in the study titled “The intersection between sleep science and policy: introduction to the special issue on school start times,” published in 2017, researchers addressed the issue surrounding delay in school start time and its positive effects on not only performance in their students but also cognitive alertness. The research study represented a large cross-section of many diverse students, all across the world. Additionally, with the use of meta-analysis, it was concluded that “later start times were associated with less daytime sleepiness and tardiness to school, all of which have important implications for students’ academic performance” (Troxel and Wolfson, 2017). This demonstrates how not only do students themselves wish for a later start time, but also, how it is substantially better for their cognitive function and mental health as well. This allows the student to stay more attentive during school hours as well as benefiting their circadian rhythmic clock. The study also provided information regarding research done within the last three decades, stating that even though there has been a hugely beneficial jump in understanding circadian rhythms and bioregulatory processes, not much has been done to effectively benefit those who need it. This social awareness and acceptance is the first step to understanding and addressing a large problem that has been affecting many young adolescents for many decades.
Together, the research explores the topic of sleep and the understanding of circadian rhythms and how it centers around how young adolescents behave, sleep and score in their academics. In particular, when it comes to students who get poor sleep or are forced to wake up at much earlier hours than their circadian rhythm agrees to, it can take a toll on their mental health, academics, as well as bioregulatory systems, encouraging an environment of mood swings, irritation as well as even sleeping during classes. In many ways, it would be incredibly beneficial to understand and address the data surrounding the benefits of delayed school starting hours, as it could be incredibly significant for the students as well as the school districts.
References:
Crowley, Stephanie J., et al. “An update on adolescent sleep: New evidence informing
The perfect storm model☆.” Journal of Adolescence, vol. 67, no. 1, 13 June
2018, pp. 55–65, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2018.06.001.
Lo, June C., et al. “Cognitive Performance, Sleepiness, and Mood in Partially Sleep
Deprived Adolescents: The Need for Sleep Study.” Sleep, vol. 39, no. 3, 1 Mar. 2016, pp. 687–698, https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.5552.
Troxel, Wendy M., and Amy R. Wolfson. “The Intersection between Sleep Science and
Policy: Introduction to the Special Issue on School Start Times.” Sleep Health,
vol. 3, no. 6, Dec. 2017, pp. 419–422, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2017.10.001.
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