Sleep requirements are the same, despite technology

Mar 10, 2009 14:13 GMT  ·  By
Children and teenagers should always have an imposed bedtime, so that they sleep at least the minimum amount of hours each night
   Children and teenagers should always have an imposed bedtime, so that they sleep at least the minimum amount of hours each night

Since, say, the 1980s, the world has suffered a dramatic change in terms of the demands the community has from its members, in regards to the number of hours each individual has to work per day, to earn their keep, or to the total volume of labor that is needed in order for society to function properly. But new studies seem to suggest that the biggest losers in all this useless commotion are children, who nowadays rarely get to sleep the normal amount of time each night.

Rather, they stay up late chatting over the Internet, texting, and generally keeping busy with other things than sleeping, even though pediatricians say that the amount of time each kid or teenager needs to sleep per night is not negotiable. However, the youth of today prefers to disregard the advice of qualified professionals, and go on with a life style that is very likely to exhaust all their energy within a maximum of 3 to 4 years .

Specialists have it that the early- to mid-teenager needs around 9 to 9 and a half hours of sleep per night on average, and that smaller kids require an increasing amount of slumber time, in order to get the same effect. For example, an 8-year-old necessitates as much as 10 hours of sleep per day, an amount that is currently diminishing not on account of the fact that parents pay less attention to their children, but because society places such a huge workload on them ever since they are little.

The really bad thing about this is that some scientists have paraded their studies around, which uphold that there are those people who need significantly less sleep than others in order to get the same results. What they fail to mention alongside that fact is that these special individuals only account for about 2.5 percent of the total population. Because of this omission, all think that they are part of this small percentage.

Experts also draw attention to the fact that the amount of time teenagers need to rest, until passing into early adulthood, doesn't change all that much between the ages of 11 and 20. However, in reality, children lose large amounts of sleep during these years, and, when they are 18, they already slumber less than 7 hours per night.