Teens and Sleep

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Sleep is food for the brain. During sleep, important body functions and brain activity occur. Skipping sleep can be harmful even deadly, particularly if you are behind the wheel. You can look bad, you may feel moody, and you perform poorly. Sleepiness can make it hard to get along with your family and friends and hurt your scores on school exams, on the court or on the field. Remember: A brain that is hungry for sleep will get it, even when you dont expect it. For example, drowsiness and falling asleep at the wheel cause more than 100,000 car crashes every year. When you do not get enough sleep, you are more likely to have an accident, injury and/or illness.

FACTS:

Sleep is vital to your well-being, as important as the air you breathe, the water you drink and the food you eat. It can even help you to eat better and manage the stress of being a teen. Biological sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking during adolescence -- meaning it is natural to not be able to fall asleep before 11:00 pm. Teens need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep each night to function best (for some, 8 1/2 hours is enough). Most teens do not get enough sleep one study found that only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights. Teens tend to have irregular sleep patterns across the week they typically stay up late and sleep in late on the weekends, which can affect their biological clocks and hurt the quality of their sleep. Many teens suffer from treatable sleep disorders, such as narcolepsy, insomnia, restless legs syndrome or sleep apnea.

CONSEQUENCES:
Not getting enough sleep or having sleep difficulties can:

Limit your ability to learn, listen, concentrate and solve problems. You may even forget important information like names, numbers, your homework or a date with a special person in your life; Make you more prone to pimples. Lack of sleep can contribute to acne and other skin problems; Lead to aggressive or inappropriate behavior such as yelling at your friends or being impatient with your teachers or family members; Cause you to eat too much or eat unhealthy foods like sweets and fried foods that lead to weight gain;

Heighten the effects of alcohol and possibly increase use of caffeine and nicotine; and Contribute to illness, not using equipment safely or driving drowsy.

SOLUTIONS:

Make sleep a priority. Review Teen Time in this toolkit and keep the Teen Sleep Diary. Decide what you need to change to get enough sleep to stay healthy, happy, and smart! Naps can help pick you up and make you work more efficiently, if you plan them right. Naps that are too long or too close to bedtime can interfere with your regular sleep. Make your room a sleep haven. Keep it cool, quiet and dark. If you need to, get eyeshades or blackout curtains. Let in bright light in the morning to signal your body to wake up. No pills, vitamins or drinks can replace good sleep. Consuming caffeine close to bedtime can hurt your sleep, so avoid coffee, tea, soda/pop and chocolate late in the day so you can get to sleep at night. Nicotine and alcohol will also interfere with your sleep. When you are sleep deprived, you are as impaired as driving with a blood alcohol content of .08%, which is illegal for drivers in many states. Drowsy driving causes over 100,000 crashes each year. Recognize sleep deprivation and call someone else for a ride. Only sleep can save you! Establish a bed and wake-time and stick to it, coming as close as you can on the weekends. A consistent sleep schedule will help you feel less tired since it allows your body to get in sync with its natural patterns. You will find that its easier to fall asleep at bedtime with this type of routine. Dont eat, drink, or exercise within a few hours of your bedtime. Dont leave your homework for the last minute. Try to avoid the TV, computer and telephone in the hour before you go to bed. Stick to quiet, calm activities, and youll fall asleep much more easily! If you do the same things every night before you go to sleep, you teach your body the signals that its time for bed. Try taking a bath or shower (this will leave you extra time in the morning), or reading a book. Try keeping a diary or to-do lists. If you jot notes down before you go to sleep, youll be less likely to stay awake worrying or stressing. When you hear your friends talking about their all-nighters, tell them how good you feel after getting enough sleep. Most teens experience changes in their sleep schedules. Their internal body clocks can cause them to fall asleep and wake up later. You cant change this, but you can participate in interactive activities and classes to help counteract your sleepiness. Make sure your activities at night are calming to counteract your already heightened alertness.

If teens need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep to do their best and naturally go to sleep around 11:00 pm, one way to get more sleep is to start school later. Teens' natural sleep cycle puts them in conflict with school start times. Most high school students need an alarm clock or a parent to wake them on school days. They are like zombies getting ready for school and find it hard to be alert and pay attention in class. Because they are sleep deprived, they are sleepy all day and cannot do their best.

Schools that have set later bell times find that students do not go to bed later, but get one hour more of sleep per school night, which means five hours more per week. Enrollment and attendance improves and students are more likely to be on time when school starts. Parents and teachers report that teens are more alert in the morning and in better moods; they are less likely to feel depressed or need to visit the nurse or school counselor.

Teaching proper food handling

by Debra J. Jordan
The author suggests a need for proper training and ongoing follow-up. He reported that there should be time for discussion and questions about the procedures related to individual food handling stations. Without this connection to one's own space, the transfer of knowledge did not appear to occur. Common unsanitary practices observed by the author included the food preparer using the same towel to wipe his hands, the counter, the food slicer, and cooking utensils during one food preparation episode. In addition, he found every cook (and several hotel administrators) engaged in taste testing using their fingers - dipping fingers in the food, licking them clean, adding spices, dipping fingers again, and so on. He also found that food handlers did not have time for meal breaks and so ate and cooked at the same time - again mixing their licked fingers into restaurant food. To address the concerns about sanitation in the kitchen, the author suggests following all proper food handling techniques as suggested by governmental agencies. All kitchen staff should know where to find supplies needed for tasting, cooking, and cleaning, and agency managers and administrators should serve as their own health inspectors, making unannounced visits and checks in the kitchen. He also emphasized the importance of agency administrators stating, following, and enforcing all food handling rules. Implications for camp Food and food preparation are concerns for almost every type of camp. Whether only snacks are provided or three meals a day are prepared, when food is handled, stored, or prepared, specific precautions should be taken to ensure the health and well-being of staff and campers. Administrators need to model desired behaviors for kitchen staff, ensure proper training, and test staff in all areas of food preparation. When food-borne illnesses strike campers, an epidemic of sorts can occur. Prevention is by far the best method of addressing these concerns. Administrators and directors take responsibility for the health and safety of campers and staff. Walczak, D. (1997). The sanitation imperative, Cornell Quarterly: Hotel And Motel Administration, 38 (2), 68-73.

Exercise: 7 benefits of regular physical activity

You know exercise is good for you, but do you know how good? From boosting your mood to improving your sex life, find out how exercise can improve your life.
By Mayo Clinic staff Want to feel better, have more energy and perhaps even live longer? Look no further than exercise. The health benefits of regular exercise and physical activity are hard to ignore. And the benefits of exercise are yours for the taking, regardless of your age, sex or physical ability. Need more convincing to exercise? Check out these seven ways exercise can improve your life.

No. 1: Exercise controls weight

Exercise can help prevent excess weight gain or help maintain weight loss. When you engage in physical activity, you burn calories. The more intense the activity, the more calories you burn. You don't need to set aside large chunks of time for exercise to reap weight-loss benefits. If you can't do an actual workout, get more active throughout the day in simple ways by taking the stairs instead of the elevator or revving up your household chores.

No. 2: Exercise combats health conditions and diseases

Worried about heart disease? Hoping to prevent high blood pressure? No matter what your current weight, being active boosts high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good," cholesterol and decreases unhealthy triglycerides. This one-two punch keeps your blood flowing smoothly, which decreases your risk of cardiovascular diseases. In fact, regular physical activity can help you prevent or manage a wide range of health problems and concerns, including stroke, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, depression, certain types of cancer, arthritis and falls.

No. 3: Exercise improves mood

Need an emotional lift? Or need to blow off some steam after a stressful day? A workout at the gym or a brisk 30-minute walk can help. Physical activity stimulates various brain chemicals that may leave you feeling happier and more relaxed. You may also feel better about your appearance and yourself when you exercise regularly, which can boost your confidence and improve your self-esteem.

No. 4: Exercise boosts energy

Winded by grocery shopping or household chores? Regular physical activity can improve your muscle strength and boost your endurance. Exercise and physical activity deliver oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and help your cardiovascular system work more efficiently. And when your heart and lungs work more efficiently, you have more energy to go about your daily chores. As millions of Americans flock to the gym armed with New Year's resolutions to get in shape, medical experts are offering an additional reason to exercise: Regular workouts may help fight off colds and flu, reduce the risk of certain cancers and chronic diseases and slow the process of aging. Physical activity has long been known to bestow such benefits as helping to maintain a healthy weight and reduce stress, not to mention tightening those abs. Now, a growing body of research is showing that regular exercise?as simple as a brisk 30- to 45-minute walk five times a week?can boost the body's immune system, increasing the circulation of natural killer cells that fight off viruses and bacteria. And exercise has been shown to improve the body's response to the influenza vaccine, making it more effective at keeping the virus at bay. "No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near-daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take," says David Nieman, director of Appalachian State University's Human Performance Lab in Kannapolis, N.C. Dr. Nieman has conducted several randomized controlled studies showing that people who walked briskly for 45 minutes, five days a week over 12 to 15 weeks had fewer and less severe upper respiratory tract infections, such as colds and flu. These subjects reduced their number of sick days 25% to 50% compared with sedentary control subjects, he says.

Medical experts say inactivity poses as great a health risk as smoking, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, depression, arthritis and osteoporosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 36% of U.S. adults didn't engage in any leisure-time physical activity in 2008. Even lean men and women who are inactive are at higher risk of death and disease. So while reducing obesity is an important goal, "the better message would be to get everyone to walk 30 minutes a day" says Robert Sallis, co-director of sports medicine at Fontana Medical Center, a Southern California facility owned by managed-care giant Kaiser Permanente. "We need to refocus the national message on physical activity, which can have a bigger impact on health than losing weight." Regular exercise has been shown to combat the ongoing damage done to cells, tissues and organs that underlies many chronic conditions. Indeed, studies have found that exercise can lower blood pressure, reduce bad cholesterol, and cut the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.

What's Your Workout? Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal

Jim Coddington preserves art for a living. His other racket is the one he swings on the squash court to keep fit. Plus, see more executives' workout routines.

Chef Brews a Kettlebell Workout

2:19

Chez Panisse chef Beth Wells shows The Wall Street Journal her workout routine. The 37-yearold says she uses kettlebells because it's fast, easy and unique.

81-Year-Old Marathoner Amps Up Workout

2:33

Watch how Joy Johnson, the defending 80-and-over champion in the New York City Marathon, cranks up her training regimen. WSJ's Matthew Futterman reports. (Oct. 30) Building on that earlier research, scientific studies are now suggesting that exercise-induced changes in the body's immune system may protect against some forms of cancer. For example, Harvard Medical School's consumer Web site (hms.harvard.edu/public/consumer) notes that more than 60 studies in recent years taken together suggest that women who exercise regularly can expect a 20% to 30% reduction in the chance of getting breast cancer compared with women who didn't exercise. While researchers are still studying the molecular changes caused by exercise and how they affect cancer, the studies suggest the outcome could be due to exercise's ability to lower estrogen levels. One study of 3,000 women being treated for breast cancer, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that for those patients with hormone-responsive tumors, walking the equivalent of three to five hours per week at an average pace reduced the risk of dying from the disease by 50% compared with more sedentary women. Researchers are also investigating whether exercise can influence aging in the body. In particular, they are looking at whether exercise lengthens telomeres, the strands of DNA at the tips of chromosomes. When telomeres get too short, cells no longer can divide and they become inactive, a process associated with aging, cancer and a higher risk of death. In a study published in November in Circulation, the medical journal of the American Heart Association, German researchers compared two groups of professional athletes (32 of whom were in their early 20s, and 25 who were middle-aged) with two groups (26 young and 21 middle-aged) who were healthy nonsmokers, but not regular exercisers. The athletes had significantly less erosion in telomeres than their more sedentary counterparts. The study

concluded that physical activity has an anti-aging effect at the cellular level, suggesting exercise could prevent aging of the cardiovascular system. Enlarge Image
Getty Images Health Column

Why You Should Step Up Your Workout

Wake-Up Call for Couch Potatoes

The federal government, which issued its first physical-activity guidelines for Americans in 2008, is developing a national plan to encourage their use. Here are recommendations for adults:

At least two hours and 30 minutes a week of moderate-intensity, or one hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity, or a combination of moderate and vigorous activity. Aerobic-activity episodes should last at least 10 minutes, preferably spread through the week. Additional health benefits are gained from as much as doubling the minimum recommended time spent each week in moderate or vigorous aerobic physical activity. Muscle-strengthening activities for all major muscle groups two or more days a week. Moderate activity can include ballroom and line dancing; biking on level ground or with a few hills; canoeing; gardening (raking, trimming shrubs); tennis (doubles); brisk walking; water aerobics. Among vigorous-activity exercises are aerobic dance; biking faster than 10 miles an hour; heavy gardening (digging, hoeing); tennis (singles); jumping rope; swimming laps; hiking uphill; race walking, jogging or running.

-- U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Efforts are underway to get sedentary Americans moving. The federal government issued its first national exercise guidelines in 2008. Now it is working with a number of medical and fitness groups to develop a National Physical Activity plan, to be released early this year, to encourage Americans to adhere to the guidelines. The guidelines, developed by the Department of Health and Human Services and available online at health.gov/paguidelines, recommend that adults get at least two hours and 30 minutes weekly of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity, or one hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise, or an equivalent combination of both. The guidelines also say that additional health benefits can be had from as much as doubling the minimum recommendation for aerobic exercise. Also recommended: muscle-strengthening activities two or more days per week, which protects against a decline in bone mass, especially that experienced by post-menopausal women.

Kaiser Permanente's Dr. Sallis also is chairman of Exercise is Medicine, a two-year-old program developed by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Medical Association to encourage doctors to assess and review each patient's physical activity program at every visit. A survey by the ACSM, whose members include physicians and exercise-science professionals, found that only four out of 10 doctors talk to their patients about the importance of exercise, and they don't always offer suggestions on the best ways to be physically active. Kaiser Permanente's California facilities last year began rolling out exercise counseling to eight million members as part of their regular doctor visits. The company also has set up a toll-free telephone line to help members create a personal-fitness plan incorporating favorite activities like gardening. "Exercise can be used like a vaccine to prevent disease and a medication to treat disease," says Dr. Sallis. "If there were a drug with the same benefits as exercise, it would instantly be the standard of care." While some patients may have risk factors such as heart conditions that could lead to heart attacks and sudden cardiac death with physical exertion, physicians can screen for such risks before prescribing an exercise program. Also, the exerciseismedicine.org Web site includes videos and self-assessment tools for consumers on how to start an exercise program, including how to exercise with diseases such as asthma and heart disease, and exercise following a stroke or heart attack. Starting an exercise program can have benefits at any age, but is particularly important for those over 40, when physical strength, endurance, flexibility and balance begin to decline, says Pamela Peeke, a Bethesda, Md., physician and fitness expert who is the author of "Fit to Live," an advice book on how to create and stick to a fitness plan. Naomi Henderson, 66, says Dr. Peeke gave her an exercise prescription several years ago, when she weighed 220 pounds. The plan called for Ms. Henderson, who owns her own marketresearch company, to start by walking on a treadmill five minutes a day and gradually increase the duration as her fitness level improved. Eventually she was able to walk in a marathon. Ms. Henderson says she has slimmed down to a size 12 from an 18 and says she is rarely ill. "I look at exercise as no different than a drug I have to take to stay healthy," she says. Lisa Callahan, co-director of the Women's Sports Medicine Center at New York's Hospital for Special Surgery, says her patients are often only partially aware of the benefits of exercise. They may know that it is helpful in reducing their risk of osteoporosis, for example, but they usually don't know that a combination of strength training, aerobic exercise and balance training is most effective at staving off the disease, says Dr. Callahan, who is the author of "The Fitness Factor," a guide for women. Dr. Nieman, of Appalachian State University, says that during exercise, two types of immune cells circulate more freely in the blood, neutralizing pathogens. Although the immune system returns to normal within three hours, the effect of the exercise is cumulative, adding up over time to reduce illness rates, he says. He compares the process to "a cleaner who comes in for an hour a day, so by the end of a month, your house looks much better."

But, Dr. Nieman says, high-intensity exercise over long periods, like running a marathon, can "take a good thing too far." Such exertion can induce the release of stress hormones in the body that damp some functions of the immune system temporarily, increasing susceptibility to infection for short periods. He cites a five-year study he conducted on 350 athletes who completed an ultra-marathon 160-kilometer race in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Among the contestants, one out of four reported sickness in the two weeks following the races. Still, says Robert Mazzeo, a professor in the department of integrative physiology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, although a single bout of intense exercise can suppress the immune system, long-term training in marathoners and other athletes can boost their baseline immunity and ability to respond to the stress of intense exercising. Rather than worrying about super athletes, however, "my concern is the sedentary people who start out pumping the Stairmaster too hard, then get sick and stop working out," says Dr. Mazzeo. "If you've made a New Year's resolution to get in shape, don't try to do it all at once," he says.