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"The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers Are So Tired, and How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive"

Aired on Thursday, August 11th.
Aired on Thursday, August 11th.

"In this timely book, Lisa L. Lewis underscores why sleep is so vital for adolescent well-being and resilience and offers detailed, actionable tools for bringing about change." -- Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO of Thrive Global

Our guest is Lisa L. Lewis, a freelance journalist who covers the intersection of parenting, public health, and education...and who played a key role in California's newly created healthy school start-times law, which is the first of its kind in the nation. She tells us about herf new book, "The Sleep-Deprived Teen." Per this starred review in Publishers Weekly: "Journalist Lewis sounds the alarm that teens aren't getting enough sleep in this impassioned survey. Due in large part to early school start times, teens are sleep deprived, she writes, and it's taking a toll on their health. Lewis explains how sleep works and details the shifts that happen during puberty and cause teens to need additional morning sleep to get sufficient rest. She details the history of school schedules, attributing earlier start times to school consolidation, busing issues, and budget cuts, and offers data showing dramatic improvements in attendance and mental health in Minnesota schools when schools started later. Parents stuck with an early bell, Lewis writes, can be 'strategic' with kids 'about naps and caffeine' and set limits for tech use at night, but the best way to deal with the problem, she argues, is to push schools to start later. To that end, she offers detailed and practical guidance, including tips for building community involvement, and responses to common objections by school districts ('Sports are often not nearly as difficult to rearrange as people think they might be,' for example). This convincing plea is well worth a look for parents and educators alike."

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