Last week Dr. James Maas, Weiss Presidential Fellow and Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and a member of the faculty at the Weill Cornell Medical College, came to campus to
talk to faculty and students. Rumors are rife at the school that we have decided to move the start of the school day to 8.30. We have not, as I told the students, but we are thinking about it, and Dr. Maas was here to help us move the conversation along.
Dr. Maas teaches introductory psychology at Cornell and is an expert on the relationship between sleep and performance. His book,
Power Sleep, is a
New York Times best seller, and he has appeared on the
Today Show,
Good Morning America,
The View,
Regis & Kelly, and
20/20. He has also presented his research to sports teams, including the Orlando Magic and the New York Jets, and to schools and educators, including Deerfield where he was instrumental in their decision to move to a later opening of school.
All of this, while impressive enough, does not tell the full story of just how much of an impact Dr. Maas had on the students. One young man wrote the following to me after the convocation:
… every single Loomis Chaffee student was on the edge of their chair!! I was actually smiling and giggling that something so simple as sleep could grasp the attention of 600 teenagers. And as you probably know, grasping the attention of a teenager is quite the incredible feat these days.
He was right, although there were actually closer to 800 people in the room. Dr. Maas certainly kept us all mesmerized. An impressive lecturer, he filled the hour with anecdotes, hard data, and practical advice on the benefits of sleep. Here are some of the most salient points:
- To be fully alert, adolescents need 9.25 hours of sleep a night although they average only 6 hours. Adults should get between 7.5 and 8.5 hours a night. Most students think they actually get more sleep than they really do.
- Sleep deprivation results in decreased concentration, lower work quality, decreased cognitive experience, weight gain, increased levels of depression, poor choice selection, and riskier behavior, among other things.
- Sleep deprivation can lower your resistance to viral infections. Someone who gets less than 6 hours of sleep a night increases their risk of contracting a virus by 50 percent and someone who gets less than 7 hours of sleep is 3 times more likely to catch a cold than someone who gets more than that.
- Most important for teenagers: At least 8 hours of sleep allows for better retention and transfer of new information into longer-term memory; i.e., All that stuff they learn during the day gets processed. More sleep translates into higher scores and higher grades.
Dr. Maas then provided some practical advice for us all on how to get the most sleep:
- Make sleep a priority and establish a regular sleep schedule—going to bed and getting up at the same time everyday including weekends.
- Reduce stress. (I’m working on that one!)
- Make sure that your bedroom is dark, calm, and cool. Dr. Maas recommends kicking out the pets—but I’m not so sure about that one.
- Get continuous sleep, but if you must nap, limit it to 15 minutes.
- Don’t drink caffeine, smoke nicotine, or drink alcohol within 3 hours of going to bed.
- Don’t use the computer before you go to bed because the blue light can keep you awake.
- Exercise during the day will help you sleep.
- So will a warm bath (my preferred option).
- Make up for lost sleep. A sleep deficit doesn’t just go away, it needs to be paid off.
As a school, we will continue to discuss the research on sleep and to assess our options. Two current faculty committees, one on the Daily Schedule and another on Health and Wellness, are working on a set of recommendations for the faculty to consider. Moving the beginning of the school day will be a start, but we will also need to think about the nighttime dorm schedule. And we need to educate our students to make sleeping more of a priority than they do.
So stay tuned…and get enough sleep!
