Good Sleep Can Improve Your Child’s Ability to Study

Did you know that quality of sleep can affect your child’s ability to study in school?

According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, both animal and human studies suggest that the quantity and quality of sleep have a profound impact on learning and memory. While it’s obvious that lack of sleep results in an inability to focus attention well enough to learn efficiently but, more importantly, researchers have found that sleep itself contributes to the consolidation of memory, which is essential for learning new information.

Learning and memory are often described in terms of three functions:

- Acquisition — the introduction of new information into the brain

- Consolidation — the processes by which a memory becomes stable

- Recall — the ability to access the information after it has been stored

Each of these steps is necessary for memory to function properly. The acquisition and recall of information occur only during wakefulness, but research suggests that memory consolidation takes place during sleep. Part of the building and repair that occurs during sleep the strengthening of the nerve connections that form our memories.

Children especially need sleep to build and strengthen nerve connections because their bodies are still forming. Good sleep for children can contribute to them having the ability to retain information throughout their lives, so they can recall information whenever they need it, now or years into the future.

Can your child’s bed affect how well your child sleeps?

Absolutely.

How Toxic Chemicals in Your Child’s Bed Affect Their Sleep

A bed contains many toxic chemicals that can affect sleep.

One of the most common is the formaldehyde on polyester-cotton permanent-press bed sheets. New permanent-press sheets will emit formaldehyde day and night for months after the first use. And formaldehyde is known to cause insomnia. I learned this almost forty years ago when I first started studying toxic chemicals in consumer products. Insomnia was one of my worst symptoms. As soon as I read this, I went and bought pure cotton sheets, took the permanent-press sheets off my bed and put on the cotton sheets, and I slept that very first night. I was no longer exhausted every day and could think much more clearly. All from simply changing the sheets on my bed.

But there’s more. A standard mattress has many materials that emit volatile organic chemicals (VOCs). And insomnia is associated with exposure to many of them.

That significant amounts of toxic chemicals are released from mattresses was verified in 2014 by a study done at the University of Texas. Engineers took measurements of emissions from 20 new and old crib mattresses and found they emit a variety of VOCs in large quantities into the air.

They discovered:

- new mattresses release about four times as many VOCs as old ones

- body heat increases emissions

- VOC emissions are strongest in the child’s immediate breathing zone, exposing them to twice as many VOCs as adults standing in the same room

Though this study was done on crib mattresses, the same toxic materials are generally used to make children’s mattresses.

Safe Materials Produce Sound Sleep

Fortunately you can create a bed for your child that is free from the toxic materials that interrupt sleep.

First get one of Naturepedic’s organic mattresses for kids. These are made from materials that are certified organic or approved nontoxic by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). GOTS has certified the entire Naturepedic manufacturing facility to meet their requirements as an organic manufacturer. No VOCs here that can cause insomnia.

Then get a Naturepedic organic cotton 400 thread count luxury sheet set, which is completely free from the formaldehyde finishes that cause insomnia. It’s even confirmed formaldehyde free by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Environment Certification Program to meet their UL formaldehyde-free standard.

Sleep is so important for children in so many ways. An organic bed will give them the best support for sound sleep, night after night.

Read more about why Debra recommends Naturepedic children’s mattresses in her Debra Lynn Dadd Recommended Products review:

Read Kids Mattresses Report

*Disclosure: Debra Lynn Dadd is a compensated Naturepedic partner, all views and opinions are her own.

About Debra Lynn Dadd:

Debra Lynn Dadd has more than thirty years experience finding nontoxic consumer products. She has been a leading consumer advocate since 1984, when she wrote the first book on toxic chemicals in consumer products and safer alternatives. Since, Debra has become the most prolific writer on the subject, with seven more published books and the largest website on nontoxic living on the internet at www.debralynndadd.com.