Is Your Teen Sleep-Deprived?
March 2, 2021
Many teens tend to stay up late. They’re on social media, watching television or YouTube, studying, or just tossing and turning for hours unable to fall asleep. Sleep can also be disrupted during stressful times during adolescence like exams or relationship problems.
More than two-thirds of high school students in the U.S. are failing to get sufficient sleep on school nights, according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) recommends that teens should sleep eight to 10 hours per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health,” explains Virginia Skiba, M.D., a sleep specialist with the Henry Ford Health System. Insufficient sleep can have a negative impact on their grades, athletic performance and mental and physical well-being, including depression and anxiety issues and drug and alcohol use.
It’s a safety issue, as well. Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of teen deaths in the U.S. In a recent survey, more than half of teens admitted to having driven when feeling too tired and nearly one in 10 teens reported having fallen asleep at the wheel.
A typical high school student is biologically wired to fall asleep around 11 p.m. Many high schools in Michigan start school as early as 7 a.m. – long before a teen’s natural wake time. The AASM advocates a later middle school and high school start time of 8:30 a.m. or later.
Tips for a Good Night’s Sleep
Teenagers’ sleep-wake cycles are biologically determined – they are programmed to stay up late at night and sleep later in the morning. Most teens are instinctively night owls. Falling asleep is often a challenge, but there are things teens can do that may help them get a good night’s sleep.
Here are some tips from Dr. Skiba, which apply not only to teens but are great advice for anyone who is struggling with feeling sleep deprived:
► First and foremost, make sleep a priority. In our busy society, too often making time for sleep is last on the list.
► Maintain a consistent bedtime and wake time that allows at least eight hours of nightly sleep, including on weekends and vacation.
► Keep the bedroom quiet and dark. Keep the TV, computer, phone and video game system out of the bedroom.
► Set a technology curfew; turn off all devices one hour before bedtime.
► Engage in quiet activities before bed, like reading, journaling or yoga, and establish a relaxing bedtime ritual.
Dr. Virginia Skiba is a sleep medicine expert who sees patients at Henry Ford Medical Centers in Grosse Pointe and Sterling Heights.
If your teen is struggling with sleep issues, talk to your pediatrician or family doctor to find out if he or she could benefit from a sleep evaluation. Call 1-800-HENRYFORD (436-7936) or visit henryford.com to learn more.
Visit henryford.com/sports or call (313) 972-4216.
NFHS Voice: Should Tech Aid Performance?
March 13, 2020
By Karissa Niehoff
NFHS Executive Director
One of the age-old objectives of the NFHS has been to preserve the records, tradition and heritage of education-based athletics and activities programs in the United States.
As the leader and advocate for high school sports and activities, the NFHS has been keeping records set by high school athletes since the first National High School Sports Record Book was published by the NFHS in 1978. The Record Book was printed annually until 2010, when it was moved online to www.NFHS.org.
Names of more than 100,000 high school student-athletes have appeared in the Record Book in the past 42 years; and while there are a few individuals and teams still remaining from that first publication, in the spirit of “records are made to be broken,” most categories have had multiple leaders.
In addition to bringing proper recognition to high school student-athletes, coaches and teams who achieve outstanding performances in interscholastic athletic competition, we believe this recognition stimulates interest in high school athletic programs and motivates other competitors to improve their skills.
And we have strived that only records set in the spirit of good sportsmanship and fair play are entered in the Record Book.
It is understandable that records are broken frequently, with continual improvements in equipment, nutrition, training methods and – most recently – technology. However, at what point do some of these improvements, particularly ever-changing technology, begin to affect the No. 1 principle of rules writing for the NFHS: Fair Play?
The NFHS has been writing playing rules for high school sports since the 1930s when it published football and basketball rules for the first time. Baseball and track & field were added in the 1940s, followed by wrestling in the 1960s and many others in the 1970s.
It is impossible that the early rules writers could have envisioned the advances in technology and how some of these improvements challenge rules writing today. Although the question about whether to utilize instant replay for game-ending plays has drawn much attention, some of the personal technology items – and the increasing presence of drones at athletic events – are more onerous.
With high-tech watches, and electronic devices such as cell phones and tablets, the ability to view and process data during actual competition is readily available, which leads to the ethical question of whether this use of technology unfairly aids performance.
This topic has generated a great deal of discussion, and some high school sports allow limited use of technology devices by coaches during games. However, when athletes are competing against each other on the field or court, the stakes should be even. No competitor in high school sports should gain an unfair advantage over an opponent based on anything other than his or her athletic preparedness for a contest.
At other levels of sport, particularly at the Olympic and professional levels, history shows that the pursuit of winning rather than the pursuit of excellence becomes the focus. While we understand the pressure to win at these levels, there is a very recent and clear example of the misuse of technology with the sign-stealing scandal in Major League Baseball.
In high school sports, the focus should not be on winning but having fun. NFHS playing rules, which are used by almost eight million participants across 17 sports, will continue to focus on risk minimization, sportsmanship and fair play.
Dr. Karissa L. Niehoff is in her second year as executive director of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) in Indianapolis, Indiana. She is the first female to head the national leadership organization for high school athletics and performing arts activities and the sixth full-time executive director of the NFHS, which celebrated its 100th year of service during the 2018-19 school year. She previously was executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools-Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference for seven years.