The Importantance of Sleep

 

Dr. Thomas Kilkenny, Director of Sleep Medicine at Staten Island University Hospital, recently joined Lis Wiehl on The Joan Hamburg Show to talk about the importance of sleep. This topic becomes particularly crucial as children begin to go back to school.

 

As the new school year begins, children are often forced to get up at 6 AM or earlier. This can be very difficult, especially for the teenager who hasn’t been getting up until noon. Dr. Kilkenny explained that this behavior is actually a “delayed sleep phase syndrome”. This means that the teen’s body clock has changed so that they go to bed late and wake up late. This can be a very tough cycle to break.

 

Kilkenny suggests that parents begin to alter a child’s “internal clock” about two weeks before school starts. Parents can do this by forcing their child to get up a little bit earlier each day until they reach the time that they need to get up for school. This will slowly adjust the child’s “internal clock”, forcing them to become tired earlier and wake up earlier.

 

This will also help children to avoid the “night owl type of situation”, which the doctor warns is a bad situation. Teens are often up late in a quiet house texting, watching television, or surfing the internet. Parents must, “Impress upon the teenager that… this is a bad situation”. This behavior prevents them from being able to rise at a decent hour.

 

Many people ask how teens are even capable of sleeping this late. Kilkenny also has an answer to this question. He says that teenagers are capable of a much deeper sleep than most adults. Some teens can sleep fourteen hours, and this is perfectly normal. The stresses and pressures of everyday life prevent most adults from being able to do this.

 

Dr. Kikenny also stresses the fact that sleep deprivation is unhealthy. He mentions that it has been proven to increase health risks such as heart attacks, and as he point out, “sleep deprivation is considered torture by the Geneva Convention”. All in all the doctor says that we need our sleep to stay healthy and alert.