New Study Shows Why You Should Get the Kids to Bed on Time
Going to bed at a regular time every night could give your child's brain a boost, recent research shows.
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A large study published in June found that young children with an irregular bed time fared worse on cognitive tests several years later. Sumathi Reddy explains on Lunch Break. Photo: Getty Images.
Going to bed at the same time every night could give your child's brain a boost, a recent study found.
Researchers at University College London found that when 3-year-olds have a regular bedtime they perform better on cognitive tests administered at age 7 than children whose bedtimes weren't consistent. The findings represent a new twist on an expanding body of research showing that inadequate sleep in children and adolescents hurts academic performance and overall health.
Izhar Cohen
The latest study considered other factors that can influence bedtime and cognitive development, such as kids skipping breakfast or having a television in their bedroom. After accounting for these, the study found that going to bed very early or very late didn't affect cognitive performance, so long as the bedtime was consistent.
"The surprising thing was the later bedtimes weren't significantly affecting children's test scores once we took other factors into account," said Amanda Sacker, director of the International Center for Lifecourse Studies in Society and Health at University College London and a co-author of the study. "I think the message for parents is…maybe a regular bedtime even slightly later is advisable."
The researchers suggested that having inconsistent bedtimes may hurt a child's cognitive development by disrupting circadian rhythms. It also might result in sleep deprivation and therefore affect brain plasticity—changes in the synapses and neural pathways—at critical ages of brain development.
Sleep experts often focus largely on how much sleep children get. While that is important, "we tend to not pay as much attention to this issue of circadian disruption," said Judith Owens, director of sleep medicine at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who wasn't involved with the study.
Insufficient sleep and irregular bedtimes may each affect cognitive development through different mechanisms, Dr. Owens said. "The kid who has both [problems] may beat even higher risk for these cognitive impairments," she said.
The study, published online in July in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, examined data on bedtimes and cognitive scores for 11,178 children.
The children were participants in the U.K.'s Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative longterm study of infants born between 2000 and 2002.
Mothers were asked about their children's bedtimes at 3, 5 and 7 years of age. Nearly 20% of the 3-year-olds didn't have a regular bedtime. That figure dropped to 9.1% at age 5 and 8.2% at age 7. Mothers were also asked about socioeconomic and demographic characteristics and family routines.
When the children were 7 years old, they received cognitive assessments in reading, math and spatial abilities. The poorest test scores were recorded by children who went to bed very early or very late, and by those who had inconsistent bedtimes, said Dr. Sacker. But once other factors in the home were taken into account only the inconsistent bedtime was associated with lower scores, she said.
A consistent pattern of sleep behavior mattered. "Those who had irregular bedtimes at all three ages had significantly poorer scores than those who had regular bedtimes," Dr. Sacker said. This was especially true for girls who didn't establish consistent bedtimes between 3 and 7 years old.
Yvonne Kelly, a co-author of the study and a professor in the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London, said the researchers aren't sure why girls seemed to be more affected. She noted that the difference in scores between these groups of girls and boys wasn't statistically significant for the reading and spatial tests, but it was for the math test.
"I don't think for one moment that boys are immune to these things and girls are more affected," Dr. Kelly said.
The researchers didn't have data on the total number of hours children slept overnight because mothers weren't asked about what time the children woke up.
In general school-age kids—kindergarten through eighth-grade—should be getting about 10 hours of sleep, while 3- and 4-year-olds might need 11 to 13 hours, including day-time naps, said Shalini Paruthi, director of the pediatric sleep and research center at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center at Saint Louis University.
Dr. Paruthi said the good news from the study is that the majority of the children went to bed at a consistent time, reinforcing advice from sleep specialists. "The younger the child is, the better it is to get into the habit of a regular bedtime," said Dr. Paruthi, who wasn't affiliated with the study. She recommends a 15-minute, pre-bedtime routine to help the brain transition from a more alert to a quiet state.
And in order to keep the body's internal clock in sync with the brain, bedtimes on weekends and in the summer should only stray from the normal time by an hour or less, Dr. Paruthi said. "The internal clock in the brain and the body like to have consistency every day," she said.
Write to Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com
After Divorce or Job Loss Comes the Good Identity Crisis
Experts say most people should give themselves a good two years to recover from an emotional trauma
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James Gulliver Hancock Recover and Rebuild: Getting over a divorce involves two overlapping processes—recovery from grief and restructuring your life. Where will you eat dinner? Who will your friends be? After all, when you are married, even if you hate your spouse, 'you know when to show up and when to come home,' an expert says.
Whether you've lost a job or a girlfriend, it won't take long before someone tells you, Dust yourself off. Time heals all wounds.
Yes, but how much time?
Wendy Bounds and Elizabeth Bernstein discuss the length it takes to recover from large emotional traumas, such as divorce or job loss.
Experts say most people should give themselves a good two years to recover from an emotional trauma such as a breakup or the loss of a job. And if you were blindsided by the event—your spouse left abruptly, you were fired unexpectedly—it could take longer.
That is more time than most people expect, says Prudence Gourguechon, a psychiatrist in Chicago and former president of the American Psychoanalytic Association. It's important to know roughly how long the emotional disruption will last. Once you get over the shock that it is going to be a long process, you can relax, Dr. Gourguechon says. "You don't have to feel pressure to be OK, because you're not OK."
Some experts call this recovery period an "identity crisis process." It is perfectly normal, they say, to feel depressed, anxious and distracted during this time—in other words, to be an emotional mess. (Getting over the death of a loved one is more complicated and typically will take even longer than two years, experts say.)
Some people may find they need less than two years to bounce back from a divorce. But experts caution that it probably doesn't pay to ignore the process, hurry it along or deny it, say, by immediately moving across the country to get a fresh start or diving into a new relationship. That will probably only postpone the day of reckoning.
After all, it takes time to rethink all the things that may be disrupted by emotional trauma, such as one's living situation, finances, professional goals and—maybe most important—how a person sees him or herself. There aren't any shortcuts. "The whole sweep of your life has to be reassessed and rewoven," Dr. Gourguechon says.
Four years ago, Michael Hassard filed for divorce from his wife of almost eight years and began attending a "divorce care" class at his Baptist church in Muscle Shoals, Ala. At the first meeting, the instructor said it would take two years to come out of the emotional turmoil.
"Hearing that was actually a relief," says Mr. Hassard, 42 and an engineer at a company that designs and builds chemical plants. "It gave me a finish line and a goal to work toward."
Mr. Hassard, who was awarded custody of his son and daughter, had been feeling depressed, angry, resentful and overwhelmed as a suddenly-single parent. He was sitting in class one night and began to see his recovery as the wall he'd had to scale on an Army boot-camp obstacle course. It was going to be tough. There was no way around it. But things would be better on the other side.
He went home and taped a note, titled "Two Years," onto the fridge. It said, "I am going to get back to normal, and I am going to do it right."
Recovering from a divorce or job loss actually involves two overlapping processes. There is the recovery from grief. And there is the even more time-consuming process of rebuilding the structure of your life. Where will you eat dinner? Who will your friends be? After all, if you are married, even if you hate your spouse, "you know when to show up and when to come home," Dr. Gourguechon says.
If you saw the loss coming—say you initiated the divorce—you are ahead of a person who was caught off guard. A person taken by surprise is "required to do a lot more rumination," says Sandra Petronio, a professor of communication at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis. "You need to do some type of analysis about what happened to you."
"People start thinking they are crazy because the things they usually do to right their ship—things like talking to their mother, asking their friends for help, getting some sleep—don't work anymore," says Ilene Dillon, a licensed clinical social worker in Kentfield, Calif. "And you have all these emotions that won't seem to stop."
To help yourself get through the process, accept that there is nothing wrong with you, even if your emotions feel overwhelming. Remind yourself that this period will end. Tell your friends and family that while you may not be your typical self for a while, you still need their support and you will recover.
Don't make any major, permanent changes, if you can help it, such as moving to a new city. Therapy can help, so you won't have to go through the process alone. As for a new relationship—forget about it.
During what he calls his own two-year "divorce recovery process," Mr. Hassard revised the note on his fridge every three months or so, updating his progress and objectives. He targeted different areas, such as "self worth," "facing my anger," "being a good parent," "forgiveness," "moving on."
"If you don't rewrite your goals," says Mr. Hassard, who has since moved to Centerville, Utah, "they start to become invisible."
Sometimes small decisions tripped him up, such as which side of the bed to sleep on, or whom to call at the end of a good day. He kept a journal, burning his most bitter entries on the backyard barbecue grill. He sometimes cried or yelled while commuting alone in his car, rolling down the windows or dropping the convertible top to "let it all blow out behind you." He waited more than a year to start dating, until he noticed himself "looking for good things instead of trying to avoid the bad."
One night, when the two years were up, Mr. Hassard held a celebration. While the kids were at a slumber party, he cooked himself his favorite meal—bacon-wrapped chicken, green-bean casserole and garlic toast—and opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
Watching the sunset from his back porch, he assessed his progress and asked: "Am I done?" The answer, he says, was "Yes."
"The finish line is only metaphorical until you make it real," he says. "And I got there."
Write to Elizabeth Bernstein at Bonds@wsj.com
Where Calories Are Hiding
Restaurants try to reduce calories; some dishes have deceptively high calories
Does revealing the calories of dishes on menus change what people choose to eat? Sarah Nassauer and Scott Davis, Panera Bread Chief Concept & Innovation Officer, discuss on Lunch Break. Photo: Panera Bread.
The moment of truth: The creamy pasta dish sounds delicious, but it's 500 calories more than the grilled chicken and vegetables. Do you order it?
In many cases the answer is yes, say researchers who have studied what happens when calorie counts are included on menus.
More diners will open their menus to find calorie counts under a proposed federal law requiring the counts in restaurants with 20 or more locations. Health advocates and restaurants say the law could be finalized by the end of the year. A Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman says details of the law, first proposed as part of the 2010 health care bill, are still being worked out. It could also require grocery and convenience stores to list calories on prepared foods.
Many restaurants are reworking recipes, swapping in whole milk for cream or putting less oil in cooking pans. Some are adding less sauce to dishes or offering smaller portions. Many are creating lower-calorie sections on menus or sticking to calorie guardrails, designing dishes to come in under 500 calories, for example. Several chains such as Starbucks Corp., McDonald's Corp., and Panera Bread Co., voluntarily post calories on menus nationally.
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The restaurants hope to attract diners who say they want healthier options (even if they don't order them) and those who say they like to know calorie information (even if they end up ignoring it).
Research on how calorie information on menus influences purchasing behavior shows mixed results. Some large studies show that customers who said they noticed the information or were exposed to it for a longer period bought fewer calories.
For example, a study funded by the City of New York that reviewed about 15,000 receipts and surveys from fast-food lunch patrons before and after the city required those restaurants to list calories on menus showed no change in the average calories bought. But 1 in 6 people used the calorie information, and that group purchased an average of 96 fewer calories, an 11% decrease.
Stanford University used purchasing data at New York, Philadelphia, and Boston Starbucks locations over a 14-month period to compare consumer behavior in restaurants with and without calories on menus. Average calories per purchase fell 6% at restaurants with calorie counts on menus. (The reduction came entirely from food purchases, not drinks.)
A handful of cities, including Seattle and Philadelphia, already require calorie counts on menus.
Jorge Back, CSPI
The Cheesecake Factory reduced calories in its Bistro Shrimp pasta by using less sauce. Next month it will be 2,440 calories, not 2,980.
Smaller studies have shown that the calorie information has no effect on purchases. One recent example from Carnegie Mellon University showed that if customers are given a pamphlet with recommended calorie information before entering a restaurant that has menu calorie counts they purchase slightly more calories.
Seventy-one percent of people say they want healthy options when they eat out, according to an internal survey from Darden Restaurants Inc., the largest full-service restaurant company in the U.S. and owner of chains including Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse.
"What's tricky is they might not always eat that way," says Cheryl Dolven, director of health and wellness for Darden. About 65% of people say they favor nutritional labeling in restaurants, according to a 2012 survey from Technomic Inc., a restaurant research and consulting firm.
Earlier this year Darden hired five people to analyze the nutritional content of potential menu items at various points during research and development, says Ms. Dolven. Typically, Darden and other companies would do this testing right before a new dish goes onto menus, she says. Now Darden menu-development chefs use the team to understand "wow, we are way over on calories and the calories are really driven by the oil in the sauté pan," and then make adjustments, says Ms. Dolven.
Lower-calorie sections have been added to menus at many Darden Restaurants in recent years. LongHorn has a "Flavorful Under 500" menu and Olive Garden a "Lighter Italian Fare" section with items under 575 calories. Across all brands, it plans to reduce sodium and calories 10% by 2016 and 20% by 2021. Darden has featured menu calorie counts where mandated by law, about 180 restaurants.
"Some people hate it," says Ms. Dolven. They think "uh, I didn't want to know that," she says.
Last month a Drexel University study found fast-food restaurants in areas where calorie counts are required on menus have a higher percentage of healthy menu items, but showed no difference in the nutritional value of menus overall.
Restaurant calorie counts aren't an exact science, as one cook might throw a larger handful of cheese into a salad than another. Industry executives say the federal law will likely provide some flexibility on accuracy as there is under FDA regulations for packaged food. For example, a box of cereal listed as 100 calories per serving can actually be up to 20% higher or 120 calories per serving.
To reduce calories, restaurants are scooping the dough out of bagels used for sandwiches or using less cheese among other tricks, says Betsy Craig, chief executive at MenuTrinfo, a Fort Collins, Colo.-based company that calculates nutritional information for restaurants and advises on recipes.
Panera Bread
Panera's Roast Turkey Artichoke Panini, a surprising 1,100 calories, was considered a 'gotcha' item for diners. It is now 780 calories.
After years of landing on the annual Xtreme Eating list of high-calorie restaurant food published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Cheesecake Factory is reducing calories in two pasta dishes by using less sauce, says David Overton, founder and chief executive of Cheesecake Factory Inc., a 163-location chain. Next month, the Bistro Shrimp Pasta will fall to 2,440 calories from 2,980, according to the restaurant. The Kids' Pasta with Alfredo Sauce will be 1,290, down from 1,810. "I was sick of winning that prize," says Mr. Overton of the CSPI list.
At Cheesecake Factory restaurants in areas where calories on menus are required, order behavior hasn't changed, he says. "I don't think it's a way to change people's eating habits."
The proposed federal law exempts menu specials such as a "soup of the day."
A person needs between about 1,800 to 2,800 calories a day depending upon activity level, metabolism, gender and other factors, says Kristin Kirkpatrick, a dietitian and wellness manager at the Cleveland Clinic's Wellness Institute. Salads with creamy dressing or cheese, full-fat yogurt, smoothies, and anything fried can be unexpectedly high-calorie, she says.
Calories are, of course, just one gauge of the healthfulness of a dish.
Some restaurants wear calorie counts like a badge of honor—and use them as a marketing tool. Mad Greens, an 11-location salad chain based in Denver, added calorie information to menus in 2010 as a way to try to stand out from other quick restaurant meals, says chief executive and co-founder Marley Hodgson.
"Our goal is to kind of get close to a 500- or 600-calorie meal," says Scott Davis, chief concept and innovation officer for Panera, which says it was the first national chain to introduce calorie information on menus nationally in 2010. When the company first compiled nutritional information in 2008 it reworked some "gotcha" items—for example, a turkey artichoke panini with a deceptively high 1,100 calories.
On a current Panera menu of limited-time dishes, in order to come in around 300 calories, salads are served with a side of olive oil and half a lemon that can be squeezed on as dressing, Mr. Davis says.
Still, he thinks "the majority of people walk right by," calorie information on menus, though over time more people have begun taking notice, he says. "I think it's one of those things that will take years to understand."
Write to Sarah Nassauer at sarah.nassauer@wsj.com
Rethinking How We Watch TV
Intel, Apple and Others Push New Technologies to Take Control of the Living Room
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—To understand how much television could soon change, it helps to visit an Intel Corp. division here that runs like a startup.
Erik Huggers, a Dutch-born former British Broadcasting Corp. executive, has assembled a 350-person team with talents beyond computer chips—programmers, industrial designers, artists and experts in fields like video encoding. Working in bright, newsroom-style offices that differ from standard Intel cubicles, they're creating an Internet-based service that doesn't only serve up on-demand programs but overhauls live TV as well.
Intel's plans include a server farm to record every piece of programming aired—local, national and international—and store it for at least three days in the "cloud." With an Intel-designed set-top box, people won't have to own DVRs or even plan to record programs.
Switch on the TV in the middle of any show, and a viewer can simply go back to the beginning. "This is live TV—but you can rewind it," Mr. Huggers says.
Intel is just one entry in the computer industry's growing land grab for the living room, one likely to bring voice activation, restyled remotes, new on-screen interfaces and other major changes in the way people interact with TVs.
Other tech giants pushing TV advances include Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and Google Inc., which last week announced a device called Chromecast that expands a category of devices that wirelessly transfer content from mobile devices to TVs. Google and Sony have also been working on Internet-based video delivery services, people familiar with the matter have said.
Computer industry players have been pushing new TV visions for 20 years, with decidedly mixed results. Cable and satellite TV providers have strong positions, with big players like Comcast Corp. preparing major technology upgrades of their own.
Negotiations with media companies for content rights could delay new services and limit some features, though Intel vows to enter some markets by the end of the year.
Yet there is a growing consensus that underlying technologies are evolving to the point that major changes in the TV experience are all but inevitable, whether delivered by new entrants or incumbents.
"I've never seen as much innovation in television as there is right now," says Ulf Ewaldsson, chief technology officer at Swedish telecom-equipment giant Ericsson, which plans to step up its own TV efforts.
Propelling the activity are changes that have made the Internet a more viable delivery medium, including the growing proportion of customers with broadband service that can accommodate high-quality video signals.
Many customers now have Internet connections in their living rooms through various devices, used largely to stream or download video programs from a variety of sources, including Netflix Inc. Consumers also use tablets and smartphones to view movies and TV shows as well as to serve as companions for action on the big screen.
Despite the developments, much is missing from Internet-based services. Popular programming, including live sports and news, is often limited to conventional carriers by licensing restrictions.
When large video libraries are available, finding specific programs can be cumbersome—especially with conventional remotes that weren't designed for entering text. Most TV services also lag the Web and mobile apps in helping discover new content.
"The phone, the laptop and the tablet have advanced so dramatically," says Tom Rogers, chief executive of TiVo Inc., the DVR pioneer. "Television has been drastically left behind."
Tech companies trying to change that include Apple. The Silicon Valley trendsetter has since 2007 sold an add-on box called Apple TV for streaming content, but has been mum about new TV offerings. The company has tested designs for its own televisions, executives at Apple suppliers have said.
Apple has explored a number of new features for such a product, people familiar with the situation have said, including integrating DVR storage and its iCloud Internet syncing and data-storage service, and voice-interaction capabilities—which Apple's Siri brought to its mobile devices.
Microsoft is also promoting voice recognition as it positions its videogame consoles and companion Kinect controller for a broad role in home entertainment. The company's Xbox One, due out this fall, allows customers to turn on multiple living-room devices by simply saying "Xbox On," the company says. They can also navigate to programs by speaking commands such as "Go to ESPN," or "I want to watch Breaking Bad." Some Xbox apps can also be used while watching television; a Skype video chat or fantasy sports scores, for example, can appear on TVs alongside a game.
Microsoft has experimented in other areas—including offering an Apple TV-like set-top box without videogame capability, building Xbox circuitry into TVs and adding DVR capability to Xbox models, people familiar with its prototypes have said.
Sony, which hasn't commented on plans for a content service, has been less vocal about technologies like voice interaction. But it has been active in other areas to improve the TV experience.
The Japanese company, for example, has developed a tablet and smartphone app called Sony TV Sideview that augments TV program guides. It supplies information on topics such as shows and actors—while also letting people incorporate searches across Netflix, YouTube and, of course, Sony's own video and music services.
One basic challenge is simply managing the growing array of content options, including movies from Netflix, Web-originated fare like YouTube, conventional live TV and video consumers have recorded. TiVo has been particularly active in offering interface software that searches through the varied offerings and works on mobile devices as well as set-top boxes.
Comcast is promising similar search advances as well as personalization features in X2, the cable giant's name for what it calls a new entertainment operating system.
That software, which Comcast plans to begin rolling out by the end of the year, is designed to recommend content currently on live TV based on tracking a customer's past viewing habits as well as topics trending on Twitter and Facebook. Comcast says X2's interface can work on TVs, PCs and mobile devices—allowing users to manage their options from multiple screens—and supports voice searching capability.
Intel's Mr. Huggers, who spearheaded development of a popular BBC content app called iPlayer, sees advantages in starting from scratch. For one thing, his developers can exploit Intel technologies such as new chips for servers and set-top boxes, configuring them to call up programs and change channels noticeably faster that other living-room hardware.
One feature Intel has decided not to pursue for now is a camera equipped with facial recognition software to help personalize offerings for each user in a household. Mr. Huggers says the technology didn't work well enough in the low lighting common when watching TV and raised privacy questions.
Intel is testing its technology with 2,500 Intel employees in California, Oregon and Arizona. Documents that surfaced this month suggest Intel may call the service OnCue, though the company has declined to comment on that possibility.
Whatever the name, Intel and others planning to create new Internet-based services are widely expected to face tough sledding in negotiating rights for video content. Such companies are in a position to demand lucrative terms, says James McQuivey, an analyst who tracks TV technology for Forrester Research.
But he doesn't expect licensing hurdles to stop long-term trends that will weaken the influence of TV incumbents. "The business is very quickly shifting away from the people that have controlled it forever," Mr. McQuivey says.
—Daisuke Wakabayashi contributed to this article.__._,_.___
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