Sleep Patterns: Children and Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder

Sleep Patterns
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Sleep Patterns
For every other human being, there is a rhythm that ours between being alert and being asleep. It is also common among most of the people to be awake and alert during the day and sleepy, lacking concentration during the night. The hypothalamus is responsible for the sleep and wake patterns that a person experiences (Barion & Zee, 2007). To be more specific, this is referred to as the circadian rhythms which is generated by the central pacemaker, ideally the suprachiasmatic nucleus which is located in the anterior part of the hypothalamus. This is a system that is also connected to the external environment, which explains why people tend to be alert during the day and sleepy during the night. The circadian clock gene is self-regulating and uses a timing system that regulates within 24 hours span (Barion & Zee, 2007). Due to the fact that this is a system that is also highly reliant on the external environment that the individual interacts with, the element of the patterns of sleep and wakefulness play a major role in the feedback mechanisms automating the sleep and wakefulness cycles and pattern. According to multiple latency sleep tests that have been conducted in the past, there is a rhythm that is seen among most people, where the level of alertness decreases between 2-4 in the evening and then picks up during the midevening hours of the day and falls again between 4-6 in the morning (Barion & Zee, 2007). It is common to have disorder in the system, when the feedback mechanism experience disruptions from the external environment. In such a case, persons experiencing these disruptions will constantly complain of insomnia or sleepiness.
In children and adolescents, there have been cases where most of them come to class and experience sleepiness. This is a common aspect especially among the persons of this age, relative to factors that could be related to their puberty developments and external factors such as the school timing. When they experience such elements of sleepiness, they also have some high chances of being affected in their behavior, psychologically and academically (Moore & Meltzer, 2008). As such, it is crucial to understand the various ways that the children and adolescents are affected when their sleep and wake patterns are disrupted by the external environment. Understanding what it is in their environment that could be causing them to feel sleepy when at a school is one of the crucial steps towards making sure such aspects are regulated to manage the patterns in question (Crowley, Acebo, & Carskadon, 2007).
Understandably this is a stage that is marred with lack of sleep from the demand placed on the persons by the physiological changes in the body along with the social dimensions of the society and basic interactions. It is estimated that more than 45% of adolescents have reported having experienced some element of feeling sleepy at least once in a week (Moore & Meltzer, 2008). Adolescents are estimated to require more than 9 hours of sleep for them to be well rested during the day. This means that they will have high levels of alertness when at school and thus it does not affect their academics and psychology (Moore & Meltzer, 2008).
For most of the adolescents that cause of their sleepiness is due to the Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder. This is a disorder that is also referred to as the delayed sleep phase syndrome and basically refers to the fact that, the person in question has circadian rhythm that is distorted (Crowley, Acebo, & Carskadon, 2007). This is a disorder that has quite a number of impacts from the level of alertness, sleepiness and even the core body temperature. Ideally, as the phrase indicates, this means that a person’s sleep rhythm is delayed by a number of hours, when compared to the socially acceptable time that one should be asleep. This further means that the person in question is thus going to experience difficulty waking up in the morning. For an adolescent, who is supposed to sleep around 10 in the evening for them to wake up at around 6 in the morning; they may sleep late into the night at around midnight which will further implicate their waking time in the morning as they prepare for school (My.clevelandclinic.org, 2016). This means that, other than the fact that the time that they go bed affects their sleep patterns, the time that they have to go to school also has the same effect. Most of the adolescents that have experienced the syndrome have had episodes of staying up late into the night. This is a common practice that largely associated with the fact that most of these adolescents also think that they are to concentrate better at night (My.clevelandclinic.org, 2016). However, if they are t...