What are we doing to the brain of our young people? We sent them to school during their biological night. It was like waking an adult every day at four in the morning.
Bruna ReisMaster in Sleep Medicine, was last week at the Open Consultation Podcast, where he clarified several doubts about sleep and lack of it. On the eve of the start of the early school year, he made an important warning: classes should not start so early.
9h, 8h30 and sometimes 8h in the morning… at these hours, the Children are still in their biological night And they are already being sent to school.
Bruna Reis explains that It’s like we woke up an adult at four in the morning.
In the case of adolescents, the situation is even more criticalsince the night’s hormone tends to produce later.
“After sexual maturation, adolescents tend to be later pace than adults, to adulthood. Therefore, the night’s hormone is later produced and, therefore, during that time, they have a genetic predisposition to lie down later,” explains the expert.
“It’s not bad spell, it’s really a biological predisposition”completes the family doctor and host do podcast, Margarida Graça Santos.
Problem of school schedules
“It turns out that the school schedules They are fixed, ”says Bruna Reis.“ And in Portugal and the vast majority of the world, They are very very morning“He adds.
“For example, if the teenager lives far, he will have to wake up much earlier. Therefore, You are going to school at your biological agestill with the night hormone completely in circulation. It was the same as waking an adult at five or four in the morning, ”he says.
The expert points out that science has already proved that start classes later and beneficial and more profitable for childreneven if it’s just half an hour.
“There are already pilot studies that show results of better school performance, less mood changes, less absences. The results are much better, both in terms of health and in terms of academic performance,” he says.
“Cutting sleep, which regulates emotions, protects mental health and has a number of such important functions, is to be penalizing them. They go barefoot for school and everything they have to do“.
