ELEMENTARY schoolchildren who took mindfulness training two times a week for two years slept an average of 74 extra minutes a night, a new study found. That boost in total sleep time included an additional 24 minutes of rapid eye movement (REM), the dream stage of sleep when memories are consolidated and stored. “The improvement in the rapid eye movement stage of sleep is really remarkable,” said senior study author Ruth O’Hara, a professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University. “Rapid eye movement is a very important phase of sleep for neuronal development and for the development of cognitive and emotional function,” O’Hara said. “So it was a striking finding for us, and we were somewhat surprised at the substantial amount of benefits we saw in the quality of the children’s sleep.” The study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found improvement in sleep began within three months of starting the training, and it increased with higher participation. “Children who reported using the techniques more often outside of class, at home, had larger gains in sleep over the time period we studied,” O’Hara said. In stark contrast, children who did not receive mindfulness training lost nearly 64 minutes of sleep over the same two-year period. “It makes intuitive sense that children who didn’t participate in the curriculum decreased their sleep, based on what we know about what it’s like to be a kid this age,” said lead author Christina Chick, a postdoctoral scholar in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford. “Older children are possibly staying up to do homework or talk or text with friends,” Chick added. “I interpret our findings to mean that the curriculum was protective, in that it taught skills that helped protect against those sleep losses.” Elementary-age children and pre-teens are supposed to get nine to 12 hours of sleep each night, while teens should sleep eight to 10 hours, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Children and adolescents who do not get enough sleep have a higher risk for many health problems, including obesity, type 2 diabetes, poor mental health, and injuries,” according to the CDC. “They are also more likely to have attention and behavior problems, which can contribute to poor academic performance in school.” The American Academy of Pediatrics has called sleep deprivation among children an “epidemic” and recommended in 2014 that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to allow teens to get the sleep they need. (SD-Agencies) | 