THE GLOBE AND MAIL | Mind your Zs: schools study adding sleep to their lesson plans
Ms. Boursier, a French and ethics teacher at Montreal’s Heritage Regional High School, says she has added sleep to her lesson plans – why it’s important and how to get more of it – because a lack of sleep is hurting her students. Ms. Boursier is part of a project, spearheaded by McGill University pediatric sleep expert Reut Gruber, which incorporates lessons on the benefits of proper sleep, sleep hygiene and the consequences of poor sleep into everyday class material, from language classes to math and science.
This fall, Dr. Gruber is also investigating how to bolster existing school services to enable school psychologists and other mental-health professionals to help identify and treat students with sleep disorders. Dr. Gruber, who is an associate professor in the psychiatry department at McGill and director of the Attention, Behaviour and Sleep Laboratory at the Douglas Research Centre, said students’ sleep problems stem from a combination of factors, including a lack of prioritization of sleep, academic pressure, extra-curricular activities and an inability to regulate their stress. Current Canadian guidelines call for nine to 11 hours of sleep a night for children, ages five to 13, and eight to 10 hours for those 14 to 17.
