Drowsiness is difficult to recognize. We’ve established it with young children, but what about older students? High school students can come home from a swim meet, finalize an English essay, and start studying for a civil service exam in the middle of the night. , may not appear particularly hampered by fatigue. And sure enough, they got his two PBs in swimming competitions, earned him an A- in an essay, and the government exam results aren’t back yet, but I feel like it went really well.
A child’s ability to stay up late and succeed in school is often seen as a positive rather than a negative, and this doesn’t end in high school. Who cares how smart a neurology resident who is too tired to lose weight during an all-night doctor’s office is? And like many other things related to sleep, horsepower is genetic. .
To understand horsepower, sleep needs, and functional levels, consider three high school students who average only 4.5 hours of sleep per night.
If you think about Kourtney, you can see that she needs 7 hours of sleep but only gets an average of 4.5 hours each night. She doesn’t have the genes that allow her to be high-functioning despite lack of sleep (horsepower), so her performance is declining and she struggles to stay awake at school.
Kim also sleeps only 4.5 hours a night when she needs 7 hours. The horsepower gene could be a genetic variant of her HLA DQB1*0602, a gene associated with narcolepsy. Individuals with this gene variant may experience less sleepiness as a result of sleep deprivation. This state of sleep deprivation is still an unhealthy situation for Kim, but she doesn’t show significant sleepiness. In other words, it’s completely unhealthy, but Kim can handle it!
Finally, in this example, Chloe also only gets 4.5 hours of sleep each night, which is consistent with her natural biological needs and, on the surface, seems unusually low. Despite having less than average hours, she functions well. ..if her perceived deficit isn’t really a deficit, her horsepower genes don’t have to improve her performance, she might remember someone’s name like Chloe. We call them short sleepers. They are people who need less sleep than normal to function at their best. The genetic underpinnings of these rare and rule-defying individuals were only just discovered when specific genetic mutations that controlled sleep needs were identified. I am doing well because I have little.
The point of explaining all of this to you is that your child is a completely unique individual with a specific genetic arrangement that this world has never seen before and never again. It is important to always evaluate. If they are getting the amount of sleep they need and are functioning well, there is little else that needs to be done other than constant monitoring. If your child is functioning normally and seems to be getting less sleep, as seen in Khloe, Kim, and Kourtney, insist on more sleep. And you may need to check if your child is taking advantage of their sleep time (Kim, so or so it seems you can’t get this new higher amount (rare Chloe).
