How Does Insufficient Sleep Affect Children's Health?

Candice Alfano, PhD, a clinical psychologist and associate psychology professor at the University of Houston, and Cara Palmer, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston, are currently conducting a study to establish the detailed ways insufficient sleep during childhood constructs elevated risk for emotional disorders in subsequent years.
Alfano states, “In particular, we are interested in understanding how children appraise, express, regulate and later recall emotional experiences, both when sleep is adequate and when it is inadequate.” We can rely and trust these experiments with children as participants because similarly to other psychological issues, sleep behaviors and patterns also develop at an early age. The primary goal of this study is to distinguish distinct emotional, behavioral, and cognitive processes, that when accompanied with sleep disruptions, make children susceptible to developing anxiety and depression.
An individual usually undergoes 5 cycles through the stages of sleep during an eight-hour night. Moreover, the first period in stage 4 is the longest, sleep becomes lighter as the night progresses, and REM sleep becomes longer throughout ones’
rest. During these stages, quality sleep acts to rejuvenate the body, helps to recover from stress, consolidate learning, and most importantly, promotes development of infants brains. In order to adequately measure these patterns of emotional risk, psychologist momentarily restrict sleep in 50 pre-adolescent children ages 7 to 11 years old.
In conclusion, the study has found that “inadequate sleep impacts children’s emotional health by creating more negative emotions, as well as by altering positive emotional experiences.” Research has confirmed that when a person is under stress, additional sleep can be required to replenish.
Sleep and mood are very closely connected, for instance, inadequate sleep can increase the risk of developing a mood disorder, such as anxiety or depression. It has been founded that two nights of interrupted sleep can cause young children to obtain a smaller amount of pleasure from positive stimuli, being less responsive to them, and being less likely to recollect specifics afterwards. In addition, those who received ample sleep had less perceptible emotional
consequences.
Familiar marks of sleep ailments include difficulty waking up or daytime sleepiness, which can be instigated by influences such as staying up late, sleep disruptions, or a varying sleep schedule. Healthy and adequate sleep is essential to children’s psychological development and continually experiencing sleep disruptions can cause long term impairment, for instance, anxiety and depression. It is imperative to view sleep with the equal importance as appropriate nourishment and habitual physical activity. University of Pennsylvania researchers found that subjects who were limited to only 4.5 hours of sleep a night for one week reported feeling additional stress, irritability, depression, and mental fatigue. When the subjects resumed normal sleep, they reported a striking improvement in temperament.
Alfano states, “our ability to self-monitor, pick up on others' nonverbal cues and accurately identify others' emotions diminishes when sleep is inadequate. Combine this with less impulse control, a hallmark feature of the teenage years, and sleep deprivation can create a 'perfect storm' for experiencing negative emotions and consequences.” At a very young age our sleep and emotion regulatory systems develop, in comparison, inadequate sleep can cause behavioral changes that elevate the risk for varying emotional reaction.
It is important to recognize that while you’re sleeping, your body is busy managing to your physical and mental well-being and getting you prepared for everyday functions. During sleep, the brain rests busy or tired neurons and in children, the brain releases growth hormones. While you’re sleeping, your body also produces essential proteins that help cells repair damage, vital for child development. Thus, the increased need for sleep and greater brain plasticity during childhood suggests this to be a critical window of opportunity for early intervention.
Lastly, many psychologists have drawn additional conclusions about certain sleep patterns and childhood development. There seems to be an association with some parents who co-sleep until the toddler years and fashioning childhood mentalities of poor self-regulators and an increase in emotional detachment issues. To help regulate these, the best time to work on good sleep patterns seems to be a joint compromise, within the first year of life. To further collect relevant data, the research team from the “Sleep and Anxiety Center of Houston” has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health to conduct longstanding studies which measure effects of poor sleep over time as these children age.