Stanford University Medical Center, November 16, 2009
The California School Boards Association has awarded Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton a 2009 Golden Bell Award for its comprehensive sleep education campaign. The program was developed in collaboration with well-known sleep researcher William Dement, MD, PhD, the Lowell W. and Josephine Q. Berry Professor, and Mark Rosekind, PhD, a local sleep scientist and former director of the Center for Human Sleep Research at the Stanford Sleep Disorders and Research Center.
The program was designed to raise awareness among students of the importance of sleep and the dangers of sleep deprivation. Research over the past decade has indicated that teens require on average more than nine hours of sleep per night, but busy high school schedules and a naturally occurring shift in the internal biological clock of teens result in later bedtimes. According to researchers, the average adolescent lives with a significant “sleep debt” that affects safety, health, performance and mood.