William Shakespeare recognised the importance of sleep by calling it “the chief nourisher in life’s feast” in his play Macbeth.

Very recently I have had a big health scare – a heart episode where it was discovered I had arterial damage to two of my coronary arteries. I am now the proud owner of two magical stents that hold my arteries open and allow me to go on living a full and happy life (I hope). My specialist is adamant (with evidence-based research of course) that this arterial damage has occurred over 20 years of my life from not sleeping well – I have a thing called “Sleep Apnoea”. This, my cardiologist maintains, is twice as strongly correlated to arterial damage compared to cigarette smoking.

It is a little ironic that this has happened to me when I have been a big advocate for our boys at Newington to have sufficient sleep – and that should they  short-change themselves in this regard their performance in the classroom and on the sports field will be seriously diminished while also allowing the potential for emotional and mental health issues to develop.

On Monday mornings we always have a Chapel Service at 10:40 AM and over the last couple of weeks, I have had the luxury of just being able to sit near the front as my colleague conducts the services during the week. In exchange, instead I’ve been taking House Chapel in the evenings. This position gives me a good view of all our young men as they sit through Chapel Services in morning and at night. What struck me last Monday was the number of boys who look really tired and worn out – and I have to say this has nothing to do with my chaplain colleague who is an interesting presenter, and has colourful content.

We have done sleep surveys at the Stanmore Campus recently and have found that many boys are well below the optimal amount of sleep. Some signs of sleep-deprivation are:

• Drop off in performance both in academic work and with sport
• Poor concentration and weak cognition which leads to poor academic performance
• Depression and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
• Difficulty controlling emotions and impulses that can lead to poor decision-making and high risk behaviours
• Disciplinary problems caused by intolerance and emotional volatility

Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, an Australian and world-renowned adolescent psychologist, is convinced that many teenagers are not getting enough sleep. He says that a “lack of REM (sleep known as “rapid eye movement” sleep) is associated with anxiety, depression, poor immunity, accidents, poor judgment and poor memory.”

For most of our boys, the day starts before 6:30 AM as they tumble (or are tumbled) out of bed, have a hasty breakfast and then begin their journey to school – some travelling from as far away as Berowra in the north and Campbelltown in the south-west – so I do recognise the fact that getting enough sleep is a big challenge for many of our lads, even if they get to bed at a reasonable hour.

What adolescent researchers and psychologists are now saying is that good consistent sleep is very important for our teens. What is also clear is that many teenagers are sleep deprived. Dr James Maas, a sleep specialist of Cornell University in the USA has put it like this, “Almost all teenagers, as they reach puberty, become walking zombies because they are getting far too little sleep.”

The challenging thing for those of us who are parents of teenagers is that the optimal average length of good sleep is 9.2 hours per night. Adding to that challenge is the discovery that as our teenagers get older their circadian timing system switches on later at night than when they were young. This means that some of our progeny will not be ready to start to go to sleep until 11:00 PM, and so they end up about two hours short of what is recommended.

Many parents are becoming aware that modifying the teenager’s mobile and computer use is going to be an important priority. As I dig a bit deeper at school, I find that many of our lads are staying up very late “chatting” through their various sophisticated social media technologies. And this can be done very discreetly as most of you will know.

Embrace sleep as a new priority in your family (have a family conference to discuss this – blame me if you like). Here are some helpful hints on trying to bring about an improvement in the sleep patterns of our boys at Newington.

• Avoid eating, drinking or exercise within a couple of hours before bedtime
• Avoid any caffeinated drinks after about 5:00 PM (especially these “energy drinks with huge doses of caffeine in them)
• Encourage your teenagers to have “sleep friendly rooms” – cool, quiet and dark (when lights are off)
• Establish with them, through negotiation and bribery, “bed and wake-up time” and stick to it (even over weekends)
• Monitor (record) the emerging patterns and re-convene “family conferences” if you need to

I am convinced that a significant number of our boys are not gaining the most out of their schooling experiences because they are sleep deprived. We can help you at school if you cannot make any headway yourselves. Please contact Mr Stan Comino (Counsellor and Psychologist) or myself.

Let me finish with an encouragement from our Scriptures, “When I lie down, I go to sleep in peace; for the LORD watches over me”. (Psalm 4:8).

Rev David Williams
College Chaplain