A Real Snoozer: Sleep, Kids & Learning

Po Bronson, magazine journalist and the author of five books, talks to SLJ about sleep, kids, and learning.

You cite studies that say kids aren't getting enough sleep, but you make a deeper point.

Kids get at least an hour's less sleep than they did three decades ago. The modern lifestyle trends rob them of sleep and turn that hour over to something else, possibly productive, possibly entertainment time.

The study you cite from Tel Aviv was especially eye-opening.

Avi Sadeh at Tel Aviv University took fourth and sixth graders, randomly divided them, and told one group, “Sleep a little more,” and the other group, “Sleep a little less.” After three nights they came to school and were given a computerized version of the Wexler Intelligence Scale for children, an extremely strong predictor of achievement scores but also of how a teacher will rate a child's ability to pay attention and emotionally regulate themselves in class. It led Sadeh to conclude that an hour's difference in sleep is equivalent to or greater than two years of cognitive maturation.

Tell us about the studies linking sleep deprivation to obesity?

It spins the mind to hear that the key to staying thin is to do the most sedentary thing humanly possible. But this is exactly what scientists are finding.