Helping to Prevent Bullying & Suicide
In the last ten years there have been many initiatives and interventions designed to reduce rates of suicide and bullying in New Zealand schools. Despite the effort, these two things continue to rise. Is it possible that we are focusing on the wrong things to prevent these? There is strong evidence that we are. Believe it or not, the answer may be better sleep. Research suggests that bullying and suicide are both strongly linked to poor sleep.
I recently met a farmer in his 50s. He said late one night he was overwhelmed by all the problems he had on his farm, and he thought about ending it all. He changed his mind and went to bed. When he woke up after a good night’s sleep, he realised all his problems were solvable. He was amazed at how tiredness made everything seem so much worse than it really was.
In terms of bullying, we may have found a reason why poor sleep and bullying are related. Researchers have found that if we are tired when we see a blank person’s face, we often see it as an angry face. So poor sleep changes our perception of the world. We also know that when we are really tired, we have a lot more arguments with other people. Couples with poor sleep often have higher divorce and separation rates!
This article is not just about students getting better sleep, it is really important that teachers try and improve their sleep, too.
Three good questions to ask yourself to determine if you are getting enough sleep are…
When you wake up, do you feel ready to go or do you feel exhausted?
In the afternoons, do you feel exhausted?
Have you fallen asleep during the day?
If the answers to the above questions are rarely then you are probably getting enough sleep. If these things happen regularly, then you may need to look at the quality and quantity of the sleep you are getting.
We know that continuous and full sleep is really important. The most restorative part of sleep happens in the last 60-90 minutes of sleep, so losing one hour at the end of sleep has a much greater impact than the percentage lost. We know that being woken up many times throughout the night is worse than a short sleep! So full and continuous sleep is vital. Phones have had a disastrous impact on our sleep. We should put our phones into flight mode or on silent at night so we are not constantly disturbed by notifications.
Hypersomnia or oversleeping can also cause the previouslymentioned problems, so this should also be addressed. The biggest cause of poor sleep is racing thoughts. This is almost always manageable. There are counsellors who specialise in this.
There is a special form of counselling called CBT for insomnia. You can buy online courses in this for less than $100 or make use of the many counsellors around New Zealand who offer it. If you experience poor sleep, make it a priority to address it: Go and see your GP. There are many causes of sleep problems, from racing thoughts to sleep apnoea to delayed sleep phase. All are at least manageable and many are curable.
If these suggestions don’t work try watching parliament TV — that will put you straight to sleep!
Teenagers
When I give public seminars, I often ask the audience if they had the choice of taming a wild lion or getting a teenager out of bed early in the morning, what would they prefer? They of course say the safest option, which is taming a wild lion.
Often teenagers are described as difficult and lazy. These two words are especially used when we talk about the times that teenagers go to bed and the time they wake up.
Recent discoveries in the field of neuroscience suggest that teenagers are not difficult or defiant, but that they just have very different neurological wiring than adults. We have found that teenagers want to go to sleep 2-3 hours after an adult and they need a longer sleep phase, often 8-10 hours rather than the standard 7-9 that adults need.
Some will say teenagers should just go to bed earlier, but if I was to put most adults to bed at 6pm for the night they would not be able to sleep. When teenagers want to go to bed late, they are not being difficult, they are following their biology.
Studies show when schools start later and students get the sleep they need, they perform much better academically and they have less time off sick. For some excellent research in this field have a look at the website, https://www.startschoollater.net/ sleep-research.html
Bullying and suicide are preventable, but we must focus on one of the true underlying causes: poor sleep.