Mary Carskadon Sleep Quotations

Kids are too sleepy to learn well. They're too sleepy to be happy. And they're at great risk for such things as traffic accidents.

We've found another part of the story - the mechanism in the brain that builds up sleep pressure is working at a different rate in adolescents than in pre-pubescent children.

When children are little, their sleep pressure rises faster so they fall asleep early, but when it's slower, like it is for teenagers, it's harder to get to sleep.

It's a double whammy. They're not getting enough sleep to recharge their brains, and we're asking their brains to be on duty at the wrong time.

This can put their circadian rhythm, or biological clock, in conflict with the school bell, ... The result illustrates a critical trend: too many teens come to school too sleepy to learn. And their fatigue often leads to behavior problems that contribute to a negative overall school performance and experience.

Teen-agers don't need less sleep the older they get. They still need as much sleep as they did when they were pre-teens, ... We, as a society, are asking them to sleep at the wrong time.