Most modern people are unconscious and sleeping for an extra hour will mean a healthier body and a better mental state. For children, sleeping for an extra hour also means they may grow taller.

Studies have shown that 70% of the child’s height depends on the parents’ genes and 30% depends on the acquired day. Among these 30% external factors, the effect of sleep on height is ranked first, beyond exercise and diet.

Most pupils

Go to bed from 9: 00-9: 30

Most junior high school students

Go to bed at 9: 30-10: 00

How is the sleep of primary and secondary school students?

Since last Friday, we have interviewed 20 students and parents one after another, including 10 elementary school students in grades 4-6, and 10 junior high school students from various primary and secondary schools in Hangzhou.

The micro survey results show that all 10 elementary school students go to bed at 9: 00-9: 30 in the evening and get up at 6: 30-7: 00 in the morning. Among them, 7 people went to bed at 9 pm and 3 people went to bed at 9:30 pm. The sleep time of primary school students is usually 9 to 9 and a half hours, and only one person reaches 10 hours.

Of the 10 junior high school students, the earliest went to bed at 9 pm, but only one. Most people go to bed from 9:30 pm to 10 pm. There is only one person who goes to bed after 10 pm. The bedtime is from 10:30 pm to 11:00 pm. The time to get up is 6:00 at the earliest and 7:00 at the latest. Most of them get up at 6:30. Most junior high school students sleep between 8 and 8 and a half hours, and only three of them reach 9 hours of sleep.

According to the “Guidelines for Health Education in Primary and Secondary Schools” issued by the Ministry of Education in 2008, it is recommended that primary school students sleep 10 hours a day and junior high school students sleep 9 hours a day. In this way, the sleep time of primary and secondary students is generally half To 1 hour.

The large amount of homework, the need to read extracurricular books, and parents believe that eight or nine hours of sleep is enough, which is the main reason for the lack of sleep time for primary and middle school students.

Growth and development experts stipulate that the son of elementary school must go to bed at 8 pm

Professor Fu Junfen is the deputy director of the Department of Endocrinology, Children’s Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang University School of Medicine, and the subject leader of the key innovative discipline of medicine (adolescent medicine) in Zhejiang Province. She is a little over a meter tall. Her son (reading high school) is 176 cm tall.

Director Fu said that she had paid close attention to her son’s sleep since she was a child. When she was in elementary school, she asked her son to go to bed at 8 pm, but not later than 8:30. Get up from 7am to 7:15 am.

When he was in junior high school, his son lived in school, and the lights went out at 8:30, and he fell asleep at almost 9:00. Get up at 7:15 in the morning.

On weekends, she never urges her son to get up, and he can get enough sleep. Sometimes the son can sleep until 11 noon. Today, his son is very strong and is the captain of the school football team.

In order not to affect his son’s sleep time, Director Fu said that his son has never taken extra-curricular cram school since childhood, no matter whether it is normal or weekend. She said that once these tutoring classes are reported, the child’s spare time will be reduced, which will naturally affect the night’s sleep time. On the other hand, the children in the cram school will inevitably be stressed and anxious. Over time, the quality of sleep will be affected.

Sleep has become the first external factor affecting children’s height

Why do growth and development experts value children’s sleep time so much that they must go to bed before 8:30 in primary school?

This is because for today’s children, sleep has become the most important external factor affecting their height.

Yang Ruiwen, director of the Physical Examination Center of the Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said: “It used to be believed that 70% of the child’s height is determined by heredity, but now, the role of acquired factors is becoming greater and greater, and diet, exercise, and sleep have even become The main reason. Especially sleep, among all external factors, the greatest impact on height. “

Yu Shaomiao, director of the Bone Age Research Center of the Sports Hospital of the Zhejiang Provincial Sports Bureau, also said: “In the past, exercise, sleep, and diet had the highest influence on height. But now, sleep has been recognized as the first influence The factors are, on the one hand, because studies at home and abroad have found that sleep time and sleep quality directly affect children’s height; on the other hand, children are not short of nutrition now, and parents are paying more and more attention to exercise, but sleep alone is generally insufficient. “

From the perspective of Western medicine, Chief Physician Fu Junfen of Zhejiang Medical Pediatric Hospital said: “Growth hormone is an important factor affecting human height, and growth hormone is not secreted like other hormones of the human body during the day. , The more it is secreted, the more it will help growth. “

21: 00-1: 00 in the morning is the peak of growth hormone secretion, once the late sleep is missed, I can never make it back

Growth hormone is secreted by the human pituitary gland. The pituitary gland has a lot of work a day. In addition to secreting growth hormone, it also secretes sex hormones, adrenocorticotropic hormones and other hormones required by the human body. Because it is “too busy”, it is not 24 hours. Secrete growth hormone.

But infancy is an exception. During infancy, no matter it is day or night, the pituitary gland continuously secretes growth hormone, so babies before 1 year old grow very fast.

After young children, the secretion of growth hormone during the day is very small, and the secretion is mainly concentrated when sleeping at night.

There are two time periods that are important for growing tall-one is from 9 pm to 1 am the next day, especially around 10 pm, the secretion of growth hormone reaches the highest, which can reach 5-7 times during the day . In addition, there is a small peak of growth hormone secretion in the hour or two around 6 am.

However, it is not that the growth hormone begins to be secreted in large amounts on time at 9 o’clock in the evening. Its large amount of secretion must have a premise: it only occurs when you sleep deeply. If you have not gone to bed, or have been to bed but have not fallen asleep, or have fallen asleep but have not entered a deep sleep state, then its secretion volume will be greatly reduced.

So the later you go to sleep, the less growth hormone you secrete, the worse it is for your child’s height.

And people generally enter into a deep sleep state from half an hour to 1 hour after falling asleep, so the recommendations of growth and development experts are:

If you want your child to grow tall, it is best to go to bed before 8:30 in the evening, not later than 9:30 at the latest, and get up after 7 in the morning.