ANCSLEEP BLOG

What is Binge Sleeping?

Imagine this scenario: you stay up late during the week, engrossed in reading, watching TV, working, or browsing on your computer. The next morning, you drag yourself out of bed, having only managed about five hours of sleep. But don't worry, you think, you can always catch up on sleep over the weekend.

On the weekends, you indulge in a bit of extra sleep, thinking it's the perfect solution to make up for those lost hours of rest. This practice is quite common among many individuals, especially considering that Americans typically clock in 6.8 hours of sleep on weekdays and 7.4 hours on weekends.

The concept of binge sleeping revolves around the notion of a "sleep debt," a fundamental concept crucial in understanding the effects of sleep deprivation and binge sleeping patterns.

Signs Your Child Isn’t Sleeping Enough

When your child isn’t sleeping enough, they will likely show signs such as being defiant, hyperactive, and/or crabby. If children don't get enough sleep, there may be an increase in behavioral issues. Signs your child isn’t sleeping enough include:

• Behavior that is consistent with ADHD signs
  • Hyperactivity
  • Difficulty concentrating
  • Defiant behavior
  • Impulsive behavior
• Excessive sleep on weekends
• Falling asleep during the day, such as at school
• Poor or erratic performance at school
• Hard time waking up in the morning

In fact, there is an increasing body of evidence from studies that children with chronic sleep problems can be misdiagnosed with ADHD (Shur-Fen Gau 2006). Another important thing is to try and establish a baseline of behavior and performance for your child so it's easier to decipher what is normal and what is uncharacteristic.

If your child’s behavior/performance is erratic from day to day, or if they are uncharacteristically defiant/crabby/sleepy, look at their sleep schedule.

Sleep myths are popular on social media, in memes, and in advice from parents and friends. Unlike many myths, which can be harmless, sleep myths may actually change your sleep behaviors in ways that negatively impact it.  

While there are certainly more than six myths about sleep, here are six common myths, some (or all) of which you may have heard. 

1. If you can’t sleep, just stay in bed 
2. Snoring is just annoying
3. Some people don’t need 7-9 hours of sleep
4. Hit the snooze button to get extra sleep
5. Using TV to fall asleep is affective
6. A night cap will help you sleep

Let’s look at these 6 sleep myths in more detail.

How Much Sleep Do Children Need?

Children need more sleep than adults. The younger the child, the more sleep they need. Below is a guideline for the amount of recommended, minimum, and maximum amount of sleep your child should be getting based on their age [Sleep Foundation]. All children are different and have unique needs, hence there is a recommended number listed, and outside of that a minimum and maximum amount of sleep are listed as well:

• Newborns 0-4 months
  • 11-19 hours per day; Recommended 14-17 hours per day
• Infants 4-12 months
  • 10-18 hours per day; Recommended 12-15 hours
• Toddlers 1-3 years
  • 9-16 hours per day; Recommended 11-14 hours
• Preschoolers 3-5 years
  • 8-14 hours per day; Recommended 10-12 hours
• Adolescents 6-13
  • 7-12 hours per day; Recommended 9-11 hours
• Teenagers 13-18 years
  • 7-11 hours per day; Recommended 8-10 hours

It's important to try and establish what amount of sleep allows your child to perform best. When children don’t get enough sleep, they will experience sleep deprivation.

False Beliefs About Sleep

Sleep myths are false statements that are regularly disseminated online, at home, among friends, etc.  Unfortunately, sleep myths can also be damaging to your health if you develop sleep deprivation by adhering to them.

Sleep deprivation is an insidious condition that lowers performance and quality of life in the following aspects of your life:

• Socially
• Physically
• Mentally
• Emotionally

Below are the common sleep myths and the truth about them. 

What is Clinical Depression?

Clinical depression is a mood disorder that causes you to feel helpless, apathetic to your life and outcomes, hopeless, numb, or sad, among other things. It can make it hard to get out bed in the morning, feel excited about things that are happening in your life, or cause you to distance yourself from friends and loved ones.

While feeling sad is a normal part of being a human, the feelings associated with clinical depression are chronic and intense enough to interfere with relationships, personal habits, personality, jobs, and so on.

Do you work hours outside of the “typical” 8-5 business day? Do you work days on and then days off? If so, then you are like millions of Americans who are considered shift workers. Especially in Alaska, the summer season often means a large influx of shift work.

• Pilots
• Construction workers
• Police workers
• Doctors and nurses
• Firefighters
• Taxi/Lyft/Uber drivers
• Customer service
• Retail

Do any of these look familiar? While shift work comes with certain perks, such as better pay for similar jobs and the ability to get stretches of time with no work, shift workers are also at a disadvantage when it comes to long-term health and sleep outcomes.

What is a Risk Factor for Insomnia?

A risk factor is something that increases your likelihood of developing a disease or condition. Insomnia, like other sleep disorders, has a number of different potential causes and factors that can put you at risk for developing insomnia.

Complicating matters is the fact there are two types of insomnia:

• Primary insomnia – no clear, underlying cause.
• Secondary insomnia – due to an underlying or secondary cause.

Adding to this is that there are two modes of insomnia as well, which concerns how long insomnia lasts:

• Acute insomnia – short-term, a month or less
• Chronic insomnia – symptomatic, long-term (at least three times per week for a month or more)

What is Sleep Deprivation

Sleep deprivation is the chronic condition of not receiving adequate sleep. Adequate sleep will differ from person to person, and change as we age. Most of us suffer from sleep deprivation because we either have trouble staying asleep, or getting to sleep. 

It's also important to distinguish between shorter term sleep deprivation, such as sleep deprivation causes by anxieties or stress that will soon pass, and long term sleep deprivation, such as a chronic lack of sleep that may spread over months or years.

Sleep deprivation is usually followed by sleep bingeing (i.e. on the weekends) before the cycle of sleep deprivation starts over. Chronic sleep deprivation has a strong link to depression. One of the common signs of insomnia and sleep apnea, for example, is depression.

Primary vs Secondary Insomnia

Before talking about causes of insomnia, it is important to understand that there are two types of insomnia:

• Primary insomnia
• Secondary insomnia

Adding to this is that there are two modes of insomnia as well, which describes the causes of insomnia:

Secondary insomnia means that you have insomnia as a direct result or symptom of something else, such as a health condition, medication, pain, substance abuse, etc. For example, depression can be an underlying cause for insomnia.

Primary insomnia means that your trouble sleeping is not directly related to some other underlying issue.