Why Are Sleep Routines So Important At Back-To-School Time?

0:00Returning to sleep routines now because as teenagers head back to school, getting back into a healthy sleep routine can be a challenge, particularly for those dealing with the stress of schoolwork and exams. A recent survey found that 92% of parents with very stressed teenagers say that school or exam stress is affecting their child's sleep. So how can parents help their teenagers reset their routines? Well, Sleep Expert Tom Coleman joins us now to share some practical advice. Tom, thanks very much for being with us. Thanks very much for having me, Adam. And I mean, that is a high percentage, 92% of parents saying that their stress teenagers it's down to school or exam stress. Why does stress have such a significant impact on Sleep Tom? Well, it's the same systems that control stress also controls sleep. It's one of the same system. So if we have elevated stress levels, our cortisol levels are higher in the evening time, then we simply won't be able to fall asleep. And we need to kind of look at our full day

1:02when we talk about changing habits. And I would say we need to look at the whole family as well, rather than just pointing at the teenager and going, you need to get off your phone or you need to fall asleep. That simply doesn't work. OK. The same systems that control stress also control sleep in simple terms, what do you mean by that? Well, I mean, if we imagine that you get up in the morning and you've nothing to add to a good night's sleep and you're cranky and you're stressed out and you can carry that into the day, you get caught off in traffic, you're released, the print or won't work. So you've elevated stress levels and then you carry that into the evening time. And you're only able to go down through the gears mentally and emotionally and cognitively. Like we all know that people are right and dead sometimes wired and what days today I didn't get everything done I have to eat. So everything is elevations and we're not able to just let go

2:06emotionally or mentally. And that's really what I mean. So it's common threads throughout different people. But teenagers, I suppose, they have a lot going on and it's a very disruptive period of their life anyway. Yeah, and I'm sure not help, but the fact that teenagers naturally tend to have later sleep patterns. So how can parents encourage an earlier bedtime and stress to them the need for more sleep without turning bedtime into a nightly battle? Yeah, absolutely. The first thing that really for insomnia is to anchor the wake up time. So try and encourage them to get up earlier or to stick to that wake up time. Now I'll give you a good tip here for parents with any age children with teenagers. If you can get into the room and pull the curtains and turn on the lights, the light will signal to their brain that it's morning time, even if it's hard to get up. But sticking, anchoring that morning time

3:07will signal to their own rhythm, their own circadian rhythm, their own body clock to fall asleep earlier, the next night if they're over tired. So that's the first thing to do is anchored the wake up time. And that should induce more sleep pressure that evening if they're tired. You also recommend giving teenagers some decompression time after school. I mean, what should that look like? Are we talking about, I'm thinking about my own children, the younger than teenagers, but a part of that we would kind of limit screen time and encourage reading a book and something I don't know, it would be similar advice for teenagers. Our absolute look, the form isn't really decompression. The form is disassociation rather than relaxation, that's what I say. So we only that sort of decompression, draw line under school, draw line under work. We don't want the teenager coming home and just galving straight into the books again or just veging out on the phone

4:09because that's not allowing everything to suck it down and decompress. So it could be reading, it could be outside, it could be exercise. It's really important that they do that, get that time to just pull away from the cognitive and the emotional demand from school. I have to ask you about energy drinks because they're hugely popular with young people, particularly when they're tired, but what impact can caffeine and energy drinks have on a teenager's sleep and anxiety levels? I mean, I already worry, Tom, about myself and he might have to coffee, I drink, but I suspect in some of these energy drinks there's even more caffeine. I mean, for me, they're the opposite to what the problem is, rice. It's my book, bear energy drinks. I mean, remembering our own teenagers, you should be full of energy, like when you're a teenager. If you need them, no, what are you gonna be like when you're in your late 40s? So energy drinks are generally tend to be loaded

5:12with caffeine, the equivalent of about three cups of coffee and a ton of other chemicals, chemical cocktail. So I'm not a fan of energy drinks, you know? There's a lot of evidence out there Harvard School of Public Health to talk about them and the dangers of consuming them. They will interfere with not just your sleep, there's emerging evidence now looking at how they negatively impact things like your gut bacteria and we need to be supporting the gut and protecting that, you know, we can use pre-improbiotics, example or calmer other things, we can eat very well. But energy drinks will only serve to disrupt sleep. It takes eight hours for half of the caffeine to be processed. So I mean, if you're having an energy drink at four or five in the afternoon, that's the equivalent of drinking half that at 12 o'clock at night. So, you know what, they're only going to disrupt sleep and compounds the problem. God, suddenly I don't feel too bad about drinking a coffee. I'm not in energy drinks and I'm glad I'm not.

6:12How much sleep, Tom, ideally should teenagers generally be getting and how concerned should parents be if their child not just falls short of that ideal amount but regularly falls short of it? The, you know, the recommendations, there is a range. It is kind of usually nine to ten hours for a teenager but sleep is very personal. And I don't want people to get the hung up on numbers. You know, you have to get this or you're missing out or whatever else. Like, you know, we want to create that supportive environment within the family because if the problem with the teenager, the parents are then lying away quarreling about it. We don't want that either. So we want to work on it as a family and that can be no forms at the dinner table. It can be going for a walk together. It can be doing, you know, creating that culture, I suppose, for a lot of a better word or habits or norms within the family to help them. And it will, it will rise itself given the opportunity

7:16and the environment. Like, sleep isn't a quick fix. It's not a one or two nights and then it's grand again. Think of sleep is going to the gym. You know, it does take weeks and months sometimes to solve it. But the body and brain will put you to sleep if you accumulate too much. If you miss out on sleep too much and you build up what we call sleep dead. So I wouldn't worry about it. I just try and focus on process and the results will come. Okay, some brilliant advice Tom. Just for a let you go, if there was any resource or maybe your own website or something like that where you would direct parents to, where would it be? Yeah, Tom Korn, Daddy's my own website. People can find me on Instagram as well. And they dropped me a message. I'd always come back to you and you know, offer, offer any support again. Brilliant stuff. Usually having guests on to make you fall asleep isn't the greatest of recommendations. But in this case, we're delighted that you're able to do that. Tom, thanks very much. Really appreciate it.

8:17Thank you. Thank you. Tom Coleman, they're the sleep expert with us on morning focus.