Is sleep impacting your performance? Teachers get less sleep than many other professionals
Could be … turns out teaching’s unique stresses can keep us up later or disrupt our sleep. According to Teacher Magazine:
According to a study by researchers at Ball State University, many teachers may not be getting enough sleep at night to be fully effective in the classroom.
Some 43 percent of teachers surveyed said they slept an average of six hours or less per night, according to the study, while half admitted to missing work or making errors due to a “serious lack of sleep.” Nearly one-fourth said their teaching skills are “significantly diminished” due to lack of sleep.
The study, which is currently under review by the Journal of School Health, examined the survey responses of 109 teachers in one Indiana district. It is considered “preliminary and descriptive,” said Denise Amschler, a professor of physiology and health sciences and co-author of the study.
While the study doesn’t correlate teachers’ reported sleep problems with instructional quality or student performance, the researchers speculated that the potential effects on schools could be significant, based on what is known about job performance and lack of sleep.
In a phone interview, Amschler noted that, based on her own and previous research, it appears teachers get less sleep than many other professional groups …
Amschler believes that teachers’ sleep problems likely derive from the unique stresses of the job, including non-fixed hours, continuous grading and planning responsibilities, and concerns about students.
The study also notes that nearly 45 percent of the respondents said they also work part-time jobs in addition to teaching.Amschler said that teachers with sleep issues tend to fall into two categories: 1) those who are overcommitted with work and family obligations and don’t get to bed until after midnight; and 2) those who go to bed at a reasonable time but can’t fall asleep because of worry or stress about school.
Now go to sleep, OK?
November 14th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
There are few people left who doubt the importance of sleep. Now there is a rush of scientific links between insomnia and dire medical consequences. That’s not going to put our sleepless minds at rest. so much sleep-advice is the same-old, same-old. the only truly new and somewhat mind-boggling approach seems to come from a Dr. Siegfried Haug. (I Want to Sleep-Unlearning Insomnia). He says that our medical and otherwise focused attempts to FIGHT insomnia are ill-advised because all fighting triggers a biological alert-response that is in itself sleep-adverse. We need to stop fighting and learn how to actively pursue/embrace sleep instead. a very exciting new idea.