*The following is excerpted from an online article from WBUR.
If you’re the parent of a school-age child, you are probably thinking about sleep these days. More specifically, you may be wondering how you will possibly get your child back on a sleep schedule for school after a summer of late nights and mornings sleeping in.
Here’s one tip, based on a recent study on sleep led by researchers at Brown University: Get rid of bright screens at night. Especially if your child is a young teen or tween.
The study, published online in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found that children between the ages of 9 and 15 in the early stages of puberty were particularly sensitive to light at night compared to older teens.
Researchers conclude: “The increased sensitivity to light in younger adolescents suggests that exposure to evening light could be particularly disruptive to sleep regulation for this group.”
From the Brown news release:
In lab experiments, an hour of nighttime light exposure suppressed their production of the sleep-timing hormone melatonin significantly more than the same light exposure did for teens aged 11 to 16 who were farther into puberty.
The brighter the light in the experiments, the more melatonin was suppressed.
“Small amounts of light at night, such as light from screens, can be enough to affect sleep patterns,” said study senior author Mary Carskadon, professor of psychiatry and human behavior in the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and director of chronobiology and sleep research at the E.P. Bradley Hospital in East Providence, R.I. “Students who have tablets or TVs or computers — even an ‘old-school’ flashlight under the covers to read — are pushing their circadian clocks to a later timing. This makes it harder to go to sleep and wake up at times early the next morning for school.”
Source: WBUR
http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2015/08/bright-screens-sleep