Across San Diego this month, parents are taking a deep breath as they try to get their children through the transition from a free and open summer schedule to the more structured back-to-school regimen.
One of the keys to that, a La Jolla-based scientist says, is more sleep.
“When we sleep, our brain cells get reconnected with each other, and a lot of the toxins we accumulate throughout the day … gets taken out during our sleep,” said Satchin Panda, a professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies who has been named among the most highly cited researchers in the world. “It’s not just the first hour or two of sleep in which this process takes place, it’s throughout our sleep.”
According to Salk, the recommended sleep durations per 24 hours are 12-16 hours (including naps) for infants less than a year old, 11-14 hours (including naps) for children ages 1-2, 10-13 hours (including naps) for children 3-5, nine to 12 hours for ages 6-12, eight to 10 hours for ages 13-18 and seven to nine hours for adults.
The brain gets better at storing, processing and recalling information when it gets enough sleep, Panda said.
“That’s why it’s important for students to get enough sleep. Their entire day is learning and recalling what they learned, learning how to interact with peers, parents and everyone,” he said. “That involves a huge amount of information processing, and when we don’t sleep enough, that process gets affected.”
Solid sleep habits usually fall to the backburner during the summer, he said.
“During the summer break, kids are more likely to have more freedom in the evening, go to bed later and have the habit of waking up late in the morning,” he said. “But going back to school requires more discipline, so they do have to go to bed a little earlier so they get at least eight to nine hours in bed for middle-schoolers and high-schoolers, and for younger kids, it should be 10 or more hours.
“That can be challenging for kids … but the goal is to let them be in bed without any devices, depending on the age, for eight to 11 hours.”
To help with the transition back to school, Panda recommends increasing sleep time whenever possible in the nights leading to opening day.
While going to bed earlier might seem like the answer, other steps also might be needed, he added. Among them are earlier dinner times and limiting screen time before bed.
“When we finish our last meal [of the day], then our stomach needs another five hours to process that food,” he said. “When that is happening, a lot of blood circulation goes to our stomach and intestines … and when there is more blood, there is more heat. So that means our core temperature is high right after we eat … and we cannot fall asleep easily.”
He advised having young children and teenagers eat a few hours before their regular bedtime to help them get a better night’s sleep.
So if bedtime is 10 p.m., “the kitchen closes at 7 p.m.,” he said, with no snacks or desserts after that time.
Panda also recommended reducing or avoiding caffeine after around 2 p.m. “It’s important they have a last call for coffee or chocolate,” he said.
Students, especially those in middle and high school, “are used to watching TV or playing on their phones or even going out” in the evening, he said. “When we do all of that, we actually need a lot of light to feel safe. So there is always light illuminating our eyes, and that light suppresses [the production of] melatonin [a hormone that promotes sleep onset and duration]. So another rule of thumb, we should avoid bright light a few hours before bed.”
That doesn’t mean avoiding all devices at night, he said, “just bright light.”
He recommends setting one’s phone on a timer so that after a certain point, the device becomes dimmer and releases different light spectrums. Also, dimmer switches can lower the brightness of light in the home.
“The brighter the light in your house or bedroom, the less melatonin you are producing,” he said.
Given changes in education — especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when classrooms went virtual and homework deadlines got later — students have to be even more disciplined to get their work in earlier and give themselves the opportunity to get adequate sleep, Panda said.
During the pandemic, he said, “the deadline to submit work became midnight … as opposed to the end of the school day.” He believes students would be better served by having earlier deadlines.
“Then kids will be forced to finish their assignments and then have some free time [in the evenings],” he said.
Earlier deadlines also would afford students more opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities during the day or evening while still providing chances for sleep, Panda said. ♦
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