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| Credit: www.thenational.ae |
The
brain power of children may be adversely affected if they go to bed at
different times every night, research has found.
Going
to bed at different times every night throughout early childhood may disrupt healthy brain
development and learning,
finds a large, long term study
Given
the importance of early childhood development on subsequent health, there may
be knock-on effects across the life course, suggest the authors.
The
authors examined data on bedtimes and cognitive test (z-scores) for reading,
maths and spatial abilities for 11 178 7-year-old children from the UK
Millennium Cohort Study.
The
impact of irregular bedtimes seemed to be cumulative.
The
authors point out that irregular bedtimes could disrupt natural body rhythms
and cause sleep deprivation, so undermining the plasticity of the brain and the
ability to acquire and retain information.
"Sleep
is the price we pay for plasticity on the prior day and the investment needed
to allow learning fresh the next day," they write. And they add:
"Early child development has profound influences on health and wellbeing
across the life course. Therefore, reduced or disrupted sleep, especially if it
occurs at key times in development, could have important impacts on health
throughout life."
###
The
above story is on the July 8, 2013 news release by the BMJ-British Medical
Journal,
The
research has been published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community
Health:
Kelly Y, Kelly J, Sacker A. Time for bed: associations with cognitive performance in 7-year-old
children: a longitudinal population-based study. J
Epidemiol Community Health, 2013; DOI: 10.1136/jech-2012-202024
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