Student Athletes Sleep Better than their Inactive Peers

A new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that teenagers who routinely exercise vigorously have higher quality sleep than their peers.

Overall, athletes scored higher in sleep quality and mood and woke fewer times after falling asleep. They also had better daytime concentration and less fatigue. Athletes also scored lower for anxiety and depressive symptoms.

The study, conducted in Switzerland, included 434 adolescents with an average age of 17. Of the total participants, 258 took part in Swiss Olympic classes, which provide intense levels of training for high school students. They averaged about 18 hours of exercise per week. The other participants, recruited from Swiss high schools, averaged about five hours of exercise per week.

Students kept a log for seven days, tracking how much they exercised, how much sleep they got, the quality of that sleep, how tired they felt during the day, how well they were able to concentrate, and how tired they were at bedtime.

Findings suggest that consistent exercising is positively related to adolescents' sleep and psychological functioning. Results also indicate that males with low exercise levels are at risk for increased sleep complaints and poorer psychological functioning.

In July the Sleep Education Blog reported on a smaller study; it also found that regular exercise can lead to multiple improvements in the sleep of teens.

Regular Exercise & Teen Sleep

A new study suggests that regular exercise can lead to multiple improvements in the sleep of teens.

The study involved 12 teen athletes who got about 14 hours of vigorous exercise per week. They were compared with 12 controls who exercised for only 1.5 hours per week. Their sleep was evaluated following a day without exercise.

Results show that the athletes took less time to fall asleep. They also woke up fewer times during the night.

Overall their sleep was more efficient; a higher percentage of their time in bed was spent sleeping. The athletes also spent more time in the stage of deep, slow-wave sleep.

Their also was less variation between the weeknight and weekend sleep of teen athletes. Often teens sleep longer on weekends to make up for sleep loss during the week.

Sleeping better at night also had a daytime effect; the athletes reported better daily performance.

Is your teen getting enough sleep? Check out the signs your teen needs sleep on SleepEducation.com.

Image by Alpharetta CVB

Sleep and High School Start Times: Lessons from Fairfax County

An editorial in today’s Washington Post examines the debate over school start times. It shows just how complex it can be to make changes to daily school schedules.

A proposal in Fairfax County, Va., would change the start time of most high schools in the county from 7:20 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. It appears that there is strong support for a change. But there are also many obstacles.

Money is one concern. In Fairfax County, 169,000 students must be transported to and from school each day. This is both complicated and costly.

The Post reports that Fairfax school officials once estimated that a schedule change could cost up to $40 million. But they found ways to make bus routes more efficient. This led to the current “no-cost” proposal.

Teens and parents may have concerns about starting and ending school later. Will some teens still have time to work on school nights? How will after-school activities be affected? Will the new schedule allow enough time for school teams to practice and play games?

In Fairfax County the group Worried About Keeping Extra-curriculars (WAKE) formed around this issue. Another group called Save Our Sport formed to represent the needs of high-school swim teams and dive teams.

Another huge hurdle for many parents is the issue of day care. Changing the schedule may cause younger children to start and end school earlier. Working parents may have to make new arrangements for the supervision of these children after school.

There also is a debate over the merits of the problem. Scientists report that a biological change causes teens to feel sleepy later at night. Early school start times may prevent them from getting the sleep they need.

Others may argue that teens just need more discipline. They could get more sleep if they would get off the Internet and put down their cell phones earlier at night.

What do you think? Is it worth the effort to change school schedules so teens can get more sleep? Or does making a change cause more problems than it solves?

Update 3/20/09: The Washington Post reports today that the Fairfax County School Board rejected the proposal to delay high school start times by a vote of 10 to 2. According to the article, the board decided that changing the school start times would create too much stress for students and parents.