Active children sleep faster

The more activity children get, the faster they'll drop off to sleep and children who spend more time lazing around take longer to fall asleep.

Difficulty falling asleep is a frequently reported problem in school-aged children. To study the factors that influence sleep patterns among children, researches studied 591 Kiwi children aged around 7 years. The children wore an activity-measuring device around their waists for 24 hours to record their daily activities.

Most children took about 26 minutes to fall asleep after bedtime. The average amount of vigorous activity was only 43 minutes. The more activity a child did, the less time it took him to fall asleep. It was found that one hour of vigorous activity (like running) reduced the time to fall asleep by almost 6 minutes.

The researchers noted that children in the study tended to be active in short bursts. Their activity was stop-go rather than continuous as an adult might do when they exercise. And for every hour a child spent each day being inactive, it took them 3 minutes longer to get to sleep.

The researchers also found that children who took less time to get to sleep stayed asleep for longer. Difficulty getting to sleep wasn't associated with other health problems although getting less sleep has been linked to obesity in past studies. These findings emphasise the importance of physical activity not only for fitness, heart health, and weight control, but also for good sleep.