Brain Sleep Inc. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, CEO: Kosuke Michibata, hereinafter referred to as "Brain Sleep") conducted a survey on children's sleep habits among 5,774 parents with children aged 3 to 9 years old across all 47 prefectures in Japan, and analyzed the survey data together with Brain Sleep and its co-creation partner, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "NTT East") to compile the results. The survey included questions that directly assessed children's sleep conditions, such as their sleep habits, as well as questions that assessed children's stress, health and motivation levels, emotional and problematic behaviors, and the risk of sleep disorders. It has been reported that Japanese children, like adults, have the shortest sleep time in the world*1, and according to this report, there is a difference of more than 1.5 hours compared to the number one ranked country, New Zealand. There is also a research report*2 that shows that sleep, especially during childhood, has a significant impact on brain development, and that children who sleep short tend to have smaller parts of the brain (hippocampus) important for memory compared to children who sleep long. Brain Sleep recognizes that lack of sleep among children is one of the major sleep issues in Japan, and based on the results of this survey, has decided to implement activities to help resolve such issues. *1: Jodi A Mindell, Avi Sadeh, Benjamin Wiegand, Ti Hwei How, Daniel YT Goh. Cross-cultural Differences in Infant and Toddler Sleep Sleep Medicine11(2010)274-280 *2: Y.Taki et al.Sleep duration during weekdays affects hippocampal gray matter volume in healthy children.Neurolmage60(2012)471-475 [Survey results summary] In this survey, Brain Sleep conducted its first survey into children's actual sleep patterns and clarified the characteristics of children's sleep in the following four areas: ① Parents' perceptions and actual situations regarding their children's sleep problems ② Parental sleep debt and child sleep debt 3) The relationship between children's poor health and sleep habits 4. Relationship between children's emotions and behavior and risk of sleep disorders [1. Awareness and reality of children's sleep issues] Japanese children have the shortest sleep time in the world, and the issue is becoming more serious every year. However, we thought that this fact may not be widely known, so we conducted a survey on awareness of sleep issues. The results showed that 68.7% of people were unaware of the fact that Japanese children have the shortest sleep time in the world, while only 5% answered that they "know the details, including the facts." We also conducted a survey on the recommended sleep time for children by age group*3 and their actual sleep time. The recommended sleep time is 10 to 13 hours for children aged 3 to 5, and 9 to 11 hours for children aged 6 to 9. It has been found that the actual amount of sleep that Japanese children get falls short of the recommended amount at most ages. The results of this survey suggest that parents in Japan do not have accurate information about their children's sleep. We will continue to promote awareness activities by proactively disseminating information about the importance of ensuring children get enough sleep, using Brain Sleep as an opportunity for parents to obtain accurate information about their children's sleep. [② Parental sleep debt and child sleep debt] This survey once again demonstrated that parents' influence may be strongly related to children's sleep duration. It was found that children whose parents had sleep debt*4 were significantly more likely to have sleep debt. As working styles become more diverse and changeable, differences in sleep time between weekdays and weekends are becoming more common. This suggests that whether parents are able to maintain a consistent daily rhythm is more important for children's sleep. *4 The lack of sleep that accumulates little by little each day. It is also called a “sleep debt.” [3] The relationship between children's poor health and sleep habits When examining the relationship between the frequency of children's poor health and their sleep habit scores*5, the results showed that the more frequently they were ill, the significantly higher their sleep habit scores (the higher the score, the more disrupted their sleep habits). The importance of sleep in maintaining health is widely known, not just for children, but the results of this study strongly suggest that sleep and health are closely related. It is possible that poor health and poor sleeping habits are causing a weakened immune system that may be related to COVID-19 infection, which means that in order to promote children's health, we need to be more conscious than ever about sleep. *5 Children's sleep habits scores are based on the CSHQ (Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire) and are calculated by Brain Sleep. The higher the score, the more disrupted the child's sleep habits are. It was found that the more disrupted the sleep habits were, the more frequently symptoms appeared in all items evaluated. [4] The relationship between children's sleep disorders and their emotional and behavioral problems*6 Children who tend to exhibit behaviors that suggest obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) or restless legs syndrome (RLS), which are relatively common sleep disorders in children, had significantly higher scores in emotional and behavioral problems than children who did not. It is possible that sleep disorders reduce the quality of sleep in these children, which may result in their behavioral problems. *6 Children's emotions and problem behaviors are scored by Brain Sleep based on the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire. The higher the score, the more problems there are with the child's emotions and behavior. Significant differences are determined by t-test at p<0.01. ■ Children's sleep status survey results page https://brain-sleep.com/sleep-deviation/research2021kids/ Brain Sleep can provide various information about this survey. [Survey Overview] Survey method: Web survey Target area: Nationwide Target conditions: Men and women Number of samples: n = 5,774 ss Survey implementation period: July 2021 * For comparisons between groups, t-tests, one-way analysis of variance, or chi-square tests were used, and a significance level of 5% or less was determined to be a statistically significant difference and recorded. Comment from Seiji Nishino / Founder of Brain Sleep, author of "The Stanford Method for Better Sleep" It has been reported that the sleep duration of Japanese people, both adults and children, is the shortest in the world. It has also been reported that if children have problems sleeping at night, they become sleepy during the day, irritable, lose their temper, cannot sit properly in class, cannot understand what the teacher is saying, and experience symptoms similar to those of the so-called "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)". They also lose motivation, feel fatigued, and experience physical symptoms. This large-scale survey found that the sleep duration of Japanese children is more than two hours shorter than the recommended sleep duration for their age, and the more disrupted their sleep habits are, the more likely they are to miss elementary school or kindergarten, catch a cold, and suffer from physical symptoms such as headaches. In addition, there was a clear tendency for children to not get enough sleep in households where adults do not get enough sleep. Children are our future treasures. We hope that adults will understand the importance of sleep for children, share the importance of sleep with their families according to their child's developmental stage, and work together as a family on sleep education to protect the mental and physical health of children. ■ Future plans We are currently developing a service called "Sleep Standard Deviation for Kids" that will allow users to understand the relative sleep status of Japanese people as a whole and solve problems by creating a set of questions that will quantify the subjective evaluation of sleep from a wide range of perspectives, including sleep-related symptoms and sleep habits, and then quantifying it as a "standard deviation" that is familiar to Japanese people. We are also preparing to provide a solution service that will understand and solve the actual sleep status of children. We will strive to get more people interested in children's sleep and provide support that matches the depth of the problem. ■About the health management service for employed people, "Sleep Standard Deviation Value® for Biz" When assessing sleep, attention is often focused on simple quantitative data such as sleep time, but Brain Sleep believes it is important to assess sleep from a more multifaceted and comprehensive perspective. Therefore, we created a set of questions that quantify the subjective assessment of sleep from a wide range of perspectives, including subjective symptoms and sleep habits, and further quantified it as a "deviation score" familiar to Japanese people, building a system that makes it possible to grasp the relative sleep state of the Japanese population as a whole. This is "Sleep Deviation Score®". Currently, with NTT East Japan as our innovation partner, we are developing a corporate health management service called "Sleep Standard Deviation for Biz." This service visualizes employees' "engagement" with the company from their "sleep" and compares it with the national sleep standard deviation, allowing you to become aware of issues that may not have surfaced within your own company and improve presenteeism.
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