1. School Health
  2. Mental Health
  3. Sleep

Sleep

Educating children and youth about sleep is important to help them develop skills and knowledge to make healthier choices.

Research has shown that shorter amounts of sleep during adolescents has been associated with depressed mood, reduced motivation, lower academic achievement, and behavioural and physical health problems.

Youth show improved cognitive functioning, alertness, and energy when they get adequate sleep. A natural shift in circadian rhythms occurs at puberty. This shift causes teens to feel tired later and fall asleep later. The later sleep/tired pattern conflicts with early school start times, which leads to decreased sleep during secondary school.

According to the Ontario Student Drug Use and Health Survey (OSDUHS, 2021) about half of students (48.9%) report getting at least eight hours of sleep on school nights. This means 51.1% are not getting at least eight hours of sleep.  In Windsor-Essex County, 39% of students in grades 7 to 12 report meeting the National guidelines for 8+ hours of sleep per night (COMPASS, 2022). On average, students report getting 7.2 hours of sleep on weekday nights.

 It is important to promote healthy sleep hygiene in the school’s Health and Physical Education curriculum. This can be supported by increasing and ensuring physical activity, being in natural daylight, and encouraging positive sleep behaviours,  i.e. completing homework right after school and not using electronics prior to sleep.  Providing students with tools to encourage health hygiene can improve their sleep quality, quantity, and their mental health.

Using the Ministry of Education’s Foundations for a Healthy School framework, schools, school boards, parents and community partners can work together to develop healthy school environments that promote and support student well-being.

Sleep resources and supports are organized below following this framework.

Resources & Information for:

Resources

Lessons and Activities

  • OPHEA Healthy Schools Certification- (French Version) Certification is a way to help promote the health and well-being of students, staff, and the school community. Contact your schools nurse for more information on how they can support your school in achieving a Healthy Schools Certification.
  • Empower student groups, such as student council or student wellness council, to actively participate in identifying school needs and develop activities to address those needs.
  • Sleep on it!: Canadian Public Health Campaign on sleep.  Discusses sleep, provides support for sleep disorders and makes healthy sleep a public health priority.
  • World Sleep Day!: World Sleep Day is March 17, 2023, the World Sleep Society supports to advance sleep health worldwide.
  • RNAO’s-Youth Mental Health & Addiction Champion Toolkit - Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) partnered with public health units, School Boards, SMH ASSIST and provincial youth based organizations to develop a peer based youth mental health initiative. The partnership resulted in the development of the toolkit to support the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based, youth-led mental health promotion and substance misuse prevention initiatives in school settings. The toolkit includes guiding frameworks, how to build your team, youth training content, event planning, and evaluation tips.
  • Promote healthy sleep hygiene in your school’s Health and Physical Education curriculum, including behaviours aimed at mitigating sources of stress (e.g., completing schoolwork before dinner as opposed to late at night and avoiding phones in the bed)
  • Ensure students are being physically active throughout the school day and get natural daylight, which can improve sleep quality and quantity.

School Board Policies

  • School boards can set policy that influence the social & environmental norms students’ experience. Consider delaying school start times. COMPASS study data found even minimal delays of 10 minutes are associated with increased sleep time, while 10-minute advances predicted reduced sleep. Please refer to your specific school board and/or school’s policies and code of conduct on sleep use for further information. Individual schools should speak to their school boards about whether they can develop individual school policies.

  • Empower student groups, such as student council or student wellness council, to actively participate in identifying school needs and develop activities to address those needs.
  • Sleep on it!: Canadian Public Health Campaign on sleep.  Discusses sleep, provides support for sleep disorders and makes healthy sleep a public health priority.
  • World Sleep Day!: World Sleep Day is March 17, 2023, the World Sleep Society supports to advance sleep health worldwide.
  • RNAO’s-Youth Mental Health & Addiction Champion Toolkit - Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) partnered with public health units, School Boards, SMH ASSIST and provincial youth based organizations to develop a peer based youth mental health initiative. The partnership resulted in the development of the toolkit to support the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based, youth-led mental health promotion and substance misuse prevention initiatives in school settings. The toolkit includes guiding frameworks, how to build your team, youth training content, event planning, and evaluation tips.