The Foundation for Sleep Awareness | Free sleep awareness education for school-aged children and their parents.

HOW WE HELP |
I.Q |
Mood |
Sports |
ADHD |
Obesity |
Caffeine

The Foundation for Sleep Awareness is a non-profit organization that offers FREE interactive sleep deprivation programs to youth of all school ages. The Foundation educates children about sleep deprivation and how it affects their success levels.

Our detailed sleep programs are based on current scientific studies and target the profound influence sleep deprivation has on the following issues: sports performance, grades, IQ, memory, focusing issues, ADD/ADHD, growth and healing, obesity, lights affect on sleep, caffeine, and sleep driving vs. drunk driving. We also discuss with the children how current culture negates the importance of proper sleep and how 80% of current high school students are sleep deprived.

Be a volunteer: The Foundation is actively interested in obtaining volunteers that would be interested in being trained to give our presentations to their own area schools. Please contact us to learn about our DIY programs!

Donations: The Foundation for Sleep Awareness will put 100% of contributed funding into our sleep awareness programs. We rely on the compassion and generosity of parents and friends of sleep-deprived youth to make our work possible. Please contact us if you are interested in donating to a specific program.

The Foundation for Sleep Awareness is a non-profit, 501c(3) organization.

The more sleep deprived you are, the lower your IQ.

Just five days of sleep deprivation can lower your child's IQ by 15 points according to Dr. Stan Coren in his book, “Sleep Thieves.” The daily decline is approximately one IQ point for the first hour of sleep loss, two for the next, and four for the next.

What does this mean? It means a person of normal intelligence could have an effective IQ of only 85 after five days, the level at which you would need special education in order to learn. Even a very intelligent person could be reduced to robotic thinking.

Proper sleep is vital to keeping you functioning at peak performance levels.

No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.
—Carrie Snow

According to Professor Rosalind Cartwright in her book, “The Twenty-Four Hour Mind,” REM sleep (or dream sleep) was observed to be helpful in working out emotional problems. REM sleep allowed her study’s participants to work out crisis issues by considering wider emotional associations and relating their current problems to past experiences. Without REM sleep, sleepers can wake without full resolution of emotional mood.

Further, deep sleep renews the body and REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep renews the mind. During REM, your brain also replenishes its supply of neurotransmitters, including feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine that boost your mood during the day.

80% of high school students are chronically sleep deprived. Teens need 9.25 hours a night.

Without proper sleep athletes perceive its actually harder to do the same workout despite all other conditions being equal. According to Bruce Martin in his article, "the Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Tolerance of Prolonged Exercise," with several nights of sleep deprivation significant changes occur in an athlete's heart and ventilation rates as they increase during activity. Sleep deprivation results in poorer peak performance and cooling during competition.

During the night your body enters a period of sleep called slow wave sleep. During this period your body begins a pulsatile release of growth hormone. According to Robert Costa, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the growth hormone activates a gene critical for the body’s tissues by stimulating muscle growth, repair, bone building, and fat burning. Experts connect deep sleep to improved athletic performance because this is the time the growth hormone is released.

Lastly, “Sleep rewires the brain and body. Lots of learning — including for new physical moves — takes place while you sleep as brain connections are made and pruned,” explained Dr. Matthew Edlund in an article in the Huffington Post. “High levels of physical activity cause the production of new brain cells — in memory areas — that become functional within days. ” So, if you’re working on improving your golf swing or tennis game, follow up your practice with a good night’s sleep.

Sleep Deprivation and ADHD have nearly identical symptoms. Sleep is crucial and for some children sleep deprivation doesn’t necessarily cause lethargy, it instead makes them hyperactive and unfocused. Researchers are increasingly seeing connections between poor sleep and what looks like ADHD.

A number of studies have shown that a huge proportion of children with ADHD also have sleep disordered breathing (apnea), restless leg syndrome, or non-restorative sleep.

Further, our children's non-stop activity levels and exposure to light emitting social media devices also mar their sleep schedules. Between 2003 and 2007, the number of diagnoses of ADHD among children climbed by a whopping 22 percent. During this time, the use of sleep-restricting devices including laptop and cellular phones became common place among Americans.

Looking at your phone or computer at night is the same as taking a drug—yes, really. Being exposed to blue light at nighttime can trigger a chemical process that acts as a switch that will turn your sleep/wake cycle on and off by releasing the hormone Melatonin. Insomnia feeds on the soft blue glow of your cell phone, digital clock, or computer. Every living thing from bacteria to plants and animals has something called a circadian rhythm or internal clock. External light cues (the sun, a computer, your phone, your iPad) play an enormous role in the regulation of this clock, especially on your sleep cycle.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination survey, people averaging less then 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night were more likely to be overweight.

Substantial medical evidence suggests insufficient sleep results in increased food intake and weight gain. Sleep and metabolism are controlled by the same sectors of the brain. When you’re sleepy, the leptin hormone that drives appetite is driven up while the ghrelin hormone that controls feelings of satiation goes down. If you’ve ever experienced a sleepless night followed by a day when no matter what you ate you were left unsatisfied, you were feeling the effects of a misfiring ghrelin hormone.

Caffeine is a drug. According to the Illinois Neurological Institute, a single cup of coffee in the morning can affect sleep at night, even if you are not aware of it.

Half Life: A it takes about five to seven hours on average to eliminate half of the caffeine you consume from your body. After eight to ten hours only 75% of it is gone. More so than any other food or beverage, caffeine is a major cause of insomnia. For children, massive amounts of caffeine can be found in the soft drinks and energy drinks they consume daily. According to the Mayo Clinic, one serving of an energy drink can contain the equivalent of the four restaurant-style espressos. Energy beverage consumption has been shown to be positively associated with high-risk behavior.

Everyone's sensitivity to caffeine is different. Anyone with trouble sleeping should decrease or stop it completely until sleep is in control.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/caffeine/AN01211
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2966367