Lack of sleep in children may cause hyperactivity
A new study has shown that children who don’t get enough sleep may be more prone to hyperactivity and bad behaviour, reports the BBC today.
The study of 280 seven and eight year old children showed that those who got less than eight hours sleep a night were the most hyperactive, and showed signs of ADHD. Their parents were asked about their child’s sleeping habits, and the child’s sleep was the monitored through an actigraph, which showed how long the child was actually asleep for whilst in bed. In many cases parents said the child was asleep for longer than they actually were.
Whilst eight hours is the recommended amount of sleep for many adults, the study advised that this was not a standard figure everyone should aim for, and that in the case of children just an extra 30 minutes could help greatly.