Estratégias para ajuste do ciclo vigília-sono de adolescentes aos horários escolares matutinos: a educação sobre o sono e a exposição a luz solar

In adolescents, who tend to sleep and wake-up later, the school schedule in the morning is associated with sleep advancement and shortening besides bedtime and wake-up time irregularity between week and weekend days. As a result, there is an increase in daytime sleepiness and a drop in cognitive performance that interfer in students performance in classroom. These consequences reinforce the need to evaluate alternatives that help the adolescent to adapt their sleep needs to the time of start of classes in the morning. Accordingly, the general aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a sleep program education and sunlight exposure in early morning on sleep-wake cycle (SWC) and daytime sleepiness of adolescents. The students chronotype were evaluated by the Horne-Ostberg questionnaire and the health and usual sleep habits by "the health and the sleep questionnaire. The SWC patterns were assessed by sleep log, the daytime sleepiness by Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS) and the alertness by the Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT). These parameters were compared before and after a sleep education program and before and during the sunlight exposure. The sleep program was effective in increasing sleep knowledge of adolescents, in promoting a reduction of bedtime and wake-up time irregularity and increasing the sleep duration in school days. The sunlight exposure effect was evaluated in the return to classes after vacation due to the difference in sleep patterns between school and vacation days. During the intervention week it was observed an advance of sleep schedules, an increase on sleep duration and alertness at the end of the morning. Assessed separately, sleep education and sunlight exposure should contribute to minimize adolescents partial sleep deprivation, but daytime sleepiness effect must be better investigated. These strategies should be used jointly by school members to improve health and performance of their students

Características sociodemográficas, hábitos de sono, estado cognitivo e funcional após acidente vascular cerebral

ABSTRACT Introduction: The cerebrovascular accident (CVA) is an important cause of neurological impairment. Few data about the factors associated with morbidity of cerebrovascular accident are found in Brazil. Objectives: Evaluate sociodemographic characteristics, sleep habits, cognitive and functional status of patients with cerebrovascular accident. Methods: The patients evaluated through questionnaire Step 1 to survey the sociodemographic characteristics and Modified Rankin Scale for functional assessment. The neurological degree was evaluated by the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), the sleep Habits questionnaire for sleep and cognitive status by the Mini-Examination of the Mental State (MEMS). The data were analyzed using the chi-square test to determine differences in proportions of variables and linear regression analysis. Results: 305 patients were evaluated and the larger number of subjects was between 50 and 69 years (40%), most patients had no formal education (40.3%) and had ischemic type of cerebrovascular accident (72.5%). In the analysis of the functionality it was found that most patients had moderate impairment (55.1%). The results of the sleep habits showed that 63,6% of patients had one more person in the bedroom,12,3% complained about too much noise in the 11 room and 35% of too much light. From these patients 5,8% were smokers, 7,8% and 70,1% drank coffee drinkers, 28,6% had difficulty in initiate to sleep and woke up 37,6% in the middle of the night. Were showed complaints about nightmares (11%), feeling of suffocation (37,7%) and 35% felt very sleepy during the day. In addition, 95% were unemployed, 80,5% did not perform physical activities and 95,4% did not perform mental activities. The cognitive screening conducted a determined association of cognitive status with age and education level and neurological status. Conclusion: The study showed a high frequency of cases of cerebrovascular accident with functional dependence in a moderate degree, identified that many patients do not follow hygienic measures of sleep and found that the assessment of cognitive deficits must take into consideration the age, educational level and degree of neurological patients. We suggest the need for programs of assistance to victims of cerebrovascular accident patients, with a multidimensional approach including the rehabilitation team, the role of sleep medicine and Neuropsychology, so that patients have access to a more appropriate functional rehabilitation, develop a lifestyle that ensures a good sleep quality and are evaluated and rehabilitated with regard to cognitive impairment

Efeito do exercício físico matinal realizado sob luz solar no ciclo vigília-sono de adolescentes

The sleep onset and offset delay at adolescence in relation to childhood. Besides biological causes, some external factors as academic obligations and socialization contributes, increasing the burden of school and socialization. However, morning school schedules reduce sleep duration. Besides light strong effect, studies in humans have indicated that exercise influence circadian synchronization. To evaluate the effect of the morning exercise under sunlight on sleep-wake cycle (SWC) of adolescents, 160 high school students (11th year) were exposed to the following conditions: lesson in usual classroom (Group C), lesson in swimming pool exposed to sunlight (Group E), half of them carrying through physical activity (EE) and the other resting (EL). Each experimental group met two stages: assessment of SWC 1 week before and 1 week during the intervention, which was held in Monday and Wednesday between 7:45 and 8:30 am. In the baseline, there were applied the questionnaires "Health and Sleep" and cronotype evaluation (H & O). In addition, students were evaluated before and during the intervention by "Sleep Diary", "Karolinska Sleepiness Scale" (KSS), Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT) and actimetry. During the intervention, there was a delay in wake-up time on the weekend and a trend to greater sleep duration on week for the three groups. At the weekend, only the groups EE and EL increased sleep duration. There was no difference in bedtime, irregularity of sleep schedules and nap variables. The sleepiness showed a circadian pattern characterized by higher alertness levels at 11:30 am and sleepiness levels at bedtime and wake-up time on week. On weekends there were higher levels of alertness in these times. In the days of intervention, there was an increase of sleepiness at 11:30 am for groups EL and EE, which may have been caused by a relaxing effect of contact with the water of the pool. In addition, the group EE showed higher alert levels at 14:30 pm on Monday and at 8:30 am in the Wednesday, possibly caused by exercise arousal effect. The reaction time assessed through the TPV did not vary between the stages. The sleep quality improved in the three groups in the second stage, making impossible the evaluation of intervention effect. However, the sleep quality increased on Monday and Tuesday only on the group EE. From the results, it is suggested that the intervention promoted effects on the sleepiness at some day hours. In other SWC variables there were no effects, possibly due to a large SWC irregularity on weekends. Thus, the evaluation of higher weekly frequency EF is necessary, since only two days were insufficient to promote greater effect on adolescents SWC

Qualidade subjetiva do sono e queixa de insônia em pacientes com Acidente Vascular Cerebral

Brain injury can be associated with changes in the sleep-wake cycle. However, studies about sleep disturbances and their relationship with quality of sleep are scarce. Besides, it remains to be known how stroke affects the mechanisms of sleep. The aim of this study was to investigate quality of sleep, complaints of sleep disturbances and associated factors in stroke patients from the Physical Therapy services in Natal -RN. This was a cross-sectional descriptive study involving 70 individuals (aged 45-65 years), 40 patients (57 ± 7 years), 11 ± 9 months after injury, and 30 healthy individua ls (52 ± 6 years), evaluated with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Sleep Habits Questionnaire. The data were analyzed by Chi-square test, t Student test and logistic regression. Poor quality sleep was found in 57,5% of the patients (6,3 ± 3,5) and was significantly higher than in the control population (3,9 ± 2,2) (t Student test, p=0,002). The patients showed significantly higher value of PSQI than controls: sleep latency (p=0,019), length of sleep (p=0,039) and dysfunction during the day (p=0,001). Regarding complaints of sleep disturbances (dyssomnias and parasomnias) analyzed by Chi-square test, the complaint of insomnia was the most prevalent (patients: 37,5%; healthy subjects: 6,7%; p=0,007). Regression analysis showed that sl eep latency (p=0,036) and complaint of insomnia (p=0,036) were associated with quality sleep. In addition, female gender (p=0,036) and complaint of broken sleep (p=0,003) were considered risk factors for the presence of insomnia. Our results show that stroke affects the homeostatic process of sleep. Shorter sleep latency and the absence of insomnia are considered protective factors for good sleep quality and this should be taken into consideration in the diagnostic and therapeutic strategies

Neurofisiologia hipocampal durante sessões de sono intercaladas por exploração espacial: Reverberação do passado ou predição do futuro?

The ability to predict future rewards or threats is crucial for survival. Recent studies have addressed future event prediction by the hippocampus. Hippocampal neurons exhibit robust selectivity for spatial location. Thus, the activity of hippocampal neurons represents a cognitive map of space during navigation as well as during planning and recall. Spatial selectivity allows the hippocampus to be involved in the formation of spatial and episodic memories, including the sequential ordering of events. On the other hand, the discovery of reverberatory activity in multiple forebrain areas during slow wave and REM sleep underscored the role of sleep on the consolidation of recently acquired memory traces. To this date, there are no studies addressing whether neuronal activity in the hippocampus during sleep can predict regular environmental shifts. The aim of the present study was to investigate the activity of neuronal populations in the hippocampus during sleep sessions intercalated by spatial exploration periods, in which the location of reward changed in a predictable way. To this end, we performed the chronic implantation of 32-channel multielectrode arrays in the CA1 regions of the hippocampus in three male rats of the Wistar strain. In order to activate different neuronal subgroups at each cycle of the task, we exposed the animals to four spatial exploration sessions in a 4-arm elevated maze in which reward was delivered in a single arm per session. Reward location changed regularly at every session in a clockwise manner, traversing all the arms at the end of the daily recordings. Animals were recorded from 2-12 consecutive days. During spatial exploration of the 4-arm elevated maze, 67,5% of the recorded neurons showed firing rate differences across the maze arms. Furthermore, an average of 42% of the neurons showed increased correlation (R>0.3) between neuronal pairs in each arm. This allowed us to sort representative neuronal subgroups for each maze arm, and to analyze the activity of these subgroups across sleep sessions. We found that neuronal subgroups sorted by firing rate differences during spatial exploration sustained these differences across sleep sessions. This was not the case with neuronal subgroups sorted according to synchrony (correlation). In addition, the correlation levels between sleep sessions and waking patterns sampled in each arm were larger for the entire population of neurons than for the rate or synchrony subgroups. Neuronal activity during sleep of the entire neuronal population or subgroups did not show different correlations among the four arm mazes. On the other hand, we verified that neuronal activity during pre-exploration sleep sessions was significantly more similar to the activity patterns of the target arm than neuronal activity during pre-exploration sleep sessions. In other words, neuronal activity during sleep that precedes the task reflects more strongly the location of reward than neuronal activity during sleep that follows the task. Our results suggest that neuronal activity during sleep can predict regular environmental changes

Caracterização do ciclo sono/vigília de professores do ensino médio em natal/rn

In the school environment is fundamental the knowledge about the sleep-wake cycle (SWC), because we find children and adolescents with excessive sleepiness and learning difficulties. Furthermore, teachers with high demand and with different work schedule, which may contribute to changes in SWC. The aim of this study was to describe the SWC of high school teachers in Natal/RN. Habits and knowledge about sleep, chronotype, SWC, daytime sleepiness, sleep quality and job satisfaction were described in 98 high school teachers from public and private school. These parameters were compared according to the characteristics of work, family structure and gender. Data collection was performed with the use of questionnaires in two stages: 1) "health and sleep" (general characterization of sleep habits), Horne & Ostberg questionnaire (characterization of chronotype), Epworth Sleepiness Scale and the Index of Pittsburg Sleep Quality, 2) The sleep diary for 14 days. From the results, we observe that the teachers woke up and went to bed earlier in the week and showed a reduction of time in bed around 42min comparing to weekend. This reduction in time in bed during the week was accompanied by an increase in nap duration on weekend. In addition the teachers woke up earlier on Saturdays than on Sundays, probably due to housework and leisure. The teachers' knowledge about sleep was low in relation to individual differences and effect of alcoholic beverages on sleep, and high in the consequences of sleep deprivation. The differences found in comparisons on the characteristics of work, family structure and gender were punctual, except concerning the work schedule. The teacher who started work in the morning and finished in the night, woke up earlier, went to bed later and had less time in bed, when compared to teachers who work only in two shifts. In addition, teachers with late chronotypes who begin the work in the morning had a greater irregularity in the wake up time compared to teachers with earlier and intermediate chronotypes. Half of teachers have excessive sleepiness, which was positive correlated with work dissatisfaction. In general, teachers showed IPSQ averages equivalent to poor sleep quality and the women showed worst averages. From the results, it is suggested that the SWC of teachers varies according to work schedule, leading to irregularity and partial sleep deprivation in the week, although these responses vary according to chronotype. These changes are accompanied by excessive daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality. However, it is necessary to expand the sample to clarify the influence of variables related to work, family structure and gender together

Avaliação do padrão do ciclo sono-vigília e a cognição em estudantes de medicina com diferentes esquemas de horários de aulas

The sleep patterns of students entering the university, is accompanied by many factors that can lead to changes in sleep habits, such as academic demands, new social opportunities, reduced parental care and irregular teaching schedules. The irregular pattern of sleep-wake cycle is usually accompanied by several daytime consequences, for example, reduced levels of motivation, performance, concentration, alertness and mood as well as increased fatigue and sleepiness.Thus, there are numerous reasons to support the fact that these students may suffer damage in their academic performance. The aim of this study was to evaluate the sleep-wake cycle (SWC) and cognition in medical students with different schemes teaching schedules. One group started classes at 08am, while the other started at 07am. We analyzed the data from 88 volunteers, 39 from each group. However, only those who participated in both stages of the study (n = 78) underwent cognitive testing. For subjective evaluation of the SWC was used questionnaires to check the quality of sleep, chronotype, daytime sleepiness and sleep habits. For objective evaluation was used actigraphy. For cognitive assessment was used the test MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment). The results indicate that the group has class earlier had a greater irregularity of the SWC and a worse performance in cognitive testing. There was a difference between the schedules the week and weekend in the subjective variables, bedtime, wake up and sleep duration in both groups. The objective variables, time in bed showed difference between the schedules the week and weekend to the group started class at 08am and the variables bedtime, get up time, actual sleep time, time in bed and wake bouts in the class at 07am. In the cognitive test, there were differences between the groups in overall score and in the areas of executive function and memory recall. Thus, it is suggested that the class starting time may cause irregularity of the SWC and the irregularity may cause mild cognitive impairment. Moreover, cognitive testing MoCA was sensitive to detect differences among students, although the difference between the schedules is small

Relação entre o ciclo sono e vigília e a função cardiorrespiratória em estudantes de medicina

Students, normally, present an irregular sleep pattern characterized by delays in sleep onset and offset from weekdays to weekends, short sleep duration on weekdays and long sleep duration on weekends. The reduction of the necessary sleep and the irregularity in the sleep patterns provoke relevant short- and long-term impairments on performances, for example, in cardiorespiratory function. The cardiorespiratory performance represents, in addition to fitness, traces associated to health conditions and in several studies to pattern and/or individual s sleep quality. The aim of this study was to evaluate the pattern of the sleep-wake cycle and the cardiorespiratory function of medical students under different class schedules. The study was accomplished with two classes of medical students of UFRN, one had classes at 7 am (n = 47) and the second had classes at 8 am (n = 41) during the week. On the first stage of the study all volunteers filled out an anamnesis, the International Physical Activity questionnaire, the Pittsburgh index of sleep quality, the Portuguese version of the Horne and Östberg cronotype questionnaire, the Health and Sleep questionnaire and the Epworth Scale of Somnolence (ESS). On the second stage, 24 students (12 of each class) had their activity rhythm monitored by actimeters set to record activity at a 2-min interval for 14 days concomitant to the completion of the sleep diary. In this same stage, each volunteer performed the effort test (treadmill) only once in the morning period (between 9:00 and 11:00). The students showed an irregular pattern of the sleep-wake cycle and this irregularity is strongly influenced by the class schedules, in addition to the contribution of the academic demand, social activities and endogenous factors. The students who woke up earlier showed greater irregularity in the sleep-wake pattern. The earlier was the class schedule the worse was the sleep quality and the greater was the frequency of students with excessive diurnal somnolence. The classes schedules and the irregular pattern of the sleep-wake cycle did not show effect on the cardiorespiratory performance of the medical students. The performance on the test seems to be affected by other factors, which can be related to the pattern of the sleep-wake cycle or not. Therefore, it is suggested that the late start of classes provokes less irregularity on the pattern of the sleep-wake cycle. However, it was observed that this irregularity and the class schedule seem not to affect the cardiorespiratory performance directly

Alterações do ciclo sono-vigília moduladas por Dopamina e suas consequências Mnemônicas

Neuroscience is on a rise of discoveries. Its wide interdisciplinary approach facilitates a more complex understanding of the brain, covering various areas in depth. However, many phenomena that fascinate human kind are far from being fully elucidated, such as the formation of memories and sleep. In this study we investigated the role of the dopaminergic system in the process of memory consolidation and modulation of the phases of sleep-wake cycle. We used two groups of animals: wildtype mice and hiperdopaminergic mice, heterozygous for the gene encoding the dopamine transporter protein. We observed in wild-type mice that the partial blockade of the D2 dopamine receptor by the drug haloperidol caused deficits in memory consolidation for object recognition, as well as a significant reduction in the duration of rapid eye movement sleep (REM). We also found a mnemonic deficit without pharmacological intervention in hiperdopaminergic animals; this deficit was reversed with haloperidol. The results suggest that dopamine plays a key role in memory consolidation for object recognition. The data also support a functional relationship between the dopaminergic system and the modulation of REM sleep

Avaliação da relação entre qualidade de sono e uma intervenção com jogos para o desempenho de crianças e adolescentes

The sleep is an active brain process that allows the efficient realization of daily tasks. The changes on sleep patterns may influence the different cognitive processes performance. Many recent studies show the possibility of cognitive performance improvement, through the cognitive training with the use of computer games. The question is if these interventions may be influenced by the sleep quality. Thus, we evaluated the sleep quality effect about the efficacy of an intervention with computers games based on the working memory and attention for a cognitive performance training of elementary school students. The sample was constituted by 42 students with average age of 10,43 years old (SD=1,23), with 22 male participants and 20 female participants. We used to evaluate the sleep with the parents a sleep questionnaire, a sleep diary and the Sleep Behavior Questionnaire. In regard to intervention, the subjectives were distributed in an experimental and in a control group, both with 21 participants. In the first group occurred the intervention that consisted in the working memory and attention training with two cognitive tasks (Safari e Brain Workshop) during 30 daily minutes, for a 6 weeks period. In an equal period, the students from the control group should reproduce an artwork using drawing software. To evaluate the cognitive performance we applied before and after the intervention period the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III). The results showed that in both the groups the performance of the intelligence, working memory, attention and visuospatial skills was below of the mean. The cognitive processes evaluated after of intervention in the experimental group had a performance significantly higher in the Perceptual Reasoning Index (t = -6,24; p < 0,01) and in the Full Scale IQ (t = -5,09; p < 0,01) and Performance IQ (t = -6,52; p < 0,01), suggesting a improvement on the visuospatial skills, attention, working memory and processing speed. On the control group, the performance was significantly higher in the Coding subtest (t = -5,38; p< 0,01) and in the Perceptual Reasoning Index (t = -3,66; p = 0,01), suggesting a improvement on the visuospatial skills and attention. The mean obtained with the Sleep Behavior Questionnaire was 53,76 (SD=14,96) for an experimental group and 61,19 (SD=12,82) for a control group, indicating tendency for a bad sleep quality in that last one. Not only during the first days, but also in the last fifteen days of the intervention we verified in the two groups an adequate time to sleep, duration and regularity, in the weekdays and on the weekends. We didn t find significant differences between the two groups in none of the sleep variables. We verified statistically meaningful improvement on the performance of the experimental group with the intervention in the two games. We didn t verify significant correlations between the games performance index and in the sleep variables of the experimental group individuals. We verified significant correlations among the performance on the Brain Workshop and the Cubes subtest, the Perceptual Reasoning Index and the Scale Performance IQ, suggesting that the significant improvement of the visuospatial skills and of the attention was correlated with the performance in the Brain Workshop. Although the absence of correlations with the performance in the Safari, possibly it also has relieved in the improvement of the cognitive performance. The findings support the hypothesis that the computer games might be a satisfactory tool for the improvement of the performance in visuospatial skills and attention. This can be resulted of the insertion of visuospatial stimulations in the task, for example, graphical elements with thematic for children that increase the interest. The IQ below mean the individuals might have influenced the improvement absence on the cognitive processes like the working memory with games. Moreover, it wasn t verified a relation between the sleep quality and the intervention efficacy. It might have been influenced by the n of the sample. Future studies must focalize in the improvement of the effect of the interventions with games

Sono e percepção visuoespacial em trabalhadores de uma empresa petroquímica submetidos a esquemas de trabalho em turnos alternantes

Shift work consists of an array of unusual work hours, such as evenings and weekends, and increasing workload, in order to meet the uninterrupted production, which leads to changes in the quality, duration and regularity of sleep. Research indicates that sleep alteration cause cognitive processes to become slower, unstable and prone to errors, leading to loss of cognitive functions such as visuospatial perception. In this sense, this research aimed to evaluate sleep quality and its relation to visuospatial perception in workers in alternating shifts. Participants were 21 panel operators in a petrochemical company, male, aged 19-53 years. All participants were subjected to schedules of alternating shifts (day and night) of 12 nonstop hours and data were collected from 10 workers who were assigned to the day shift and 11 workers assigned to the night shift. For the sleep evaluation were used the Sleep Diary, the Sleep Habits Questionnaire, the Chronotype Identification Questionnaire and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The visuospatial skills were assessed using the Rey Complex Figure Test and attention was assessed using a portable version of the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT). The results showed that the general sample of workers obtained poor sleep quality on working days and good sleep quality during the work break. There was shortened sleep duration in the work week and appropriate duration in the work break. No losses were found in the workers visuospatiality, but the good quality of sleep during the work break was correlated to adequate visuospatial performance, for the day shift workers. The attention performance oscillated throughout the work hours, especially on the night shift. It is concluded that the alternating shifts work scheme can be detrimental to the sleep quality workers and a good sleep quality can contribute to a better visuospatial performance

Caracterização do perfil do ciclo sono-vigília em ratos sob dessincronização forçada

The circadian behavior associated with the 24 hours light-dark (LD) cycle (T24) is due to a circadian clock , which in mammals is located in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Under experimental conditions in which rats are espoused to a symmetric LD 22h cycle (T22) the two SCN regions, ventrolateral (vl) and dorsomedial (dm), can be functionally isolated, suggesting that each region regulates distinct physiological and behavioral components. The vl region regulates the locomotor activity and slow wave sleep (SWS) rhythms, while the dm region assures the body temperature and paradoxical sleep (PS) rhythms regulation. This research aimed to deepen the knowledge on the functional properties of circadian rhythmicity, specifically about the internal desynchronization process, and its consequences to locomotor activity and body temperature rhythms as well as to the sleep-wake cycle pattern in rats. We applied infrared motion sensors, implanted body temperature sensors and a telemetry system to record electrocorticogram (ECoG) and electromyogram (EMG) in two rat groups. The control group under 24h period LD cycle (T24: 12hL-12hD) to the baseline record and the experimental group under 22h period LD cycle (T22: 11hL- 11hD), in which is known to occur the uncoupling process of the circadian locomotor activity rhythm where the animals show two distinct locomotor activity rhythms: one synchronized to the external LD cycle, and another expressed in free running course, with period greater than 24h. As a result of 22h cycles, characteristic locomotor activity moment appear, that are coincidence moments (T22C) and non coincidence moments (T22NC) which were the main focus or our study. Our results show an increase in locomotor activity, especially in coincidence moments, and the inversion of locomotor activity, body temperature, and sleep-wake cycle patterns in non coincidence moments. We can also observe the increase in SWS and decrease in PS, both in coincidence and non coincidence moments. Probably the increases in locomotor activity as a way to promote the coupling between circadian oscillators generate an increased homeostatic pressure and thus increase SWS, promoting the decreasing in PS

Abordando o sono no ensino médio: proposta de unidade didática contextualizada com o tema saúde

Biological rhythms are part of the life from the simplest to the most complex living beings. In humans, one of the most important biological rhythms is the sleep-wake cycle (SWC), which represents an indispensable behavior for health, since sleep deprivation can lead to deficits in attention and memory, mood and daytime sleepiness which may affect school performance. Nevertheless, the SWC is a content rarely discussed in schools. Thus, the aim of this research was to address contents of the sleep-wake cycle, related to the content of Health to encourage healthy sleep habits. This study was conducted in a public school with 33 students of the 3rd year of high school and is divided into four stages: 1st) Study and analysis of the content of the textbook adopted by the school to subsidize the activities covered in the teaching unit (TU) and approximation with the biology teacher from the class to evaluated the feasibility of schedules for the development of TU; 2nd) Survey of students' prior knowledge, through a questionnaire, to guide the development of the TU; 3rd) Development and implementation of a TU based on meaningful learning and characterization of the students sleep habits, 4th) Evaluation of the TU as a viable proposal to teach biological rhythms concepts. Previous knowledge of students about the SWC are scarce and this content is not covered in the books adopted by the school. Alternative conceptions were observed, particularly with regard to individual differences in sleep, which may contribute to the occurrence of inadequate sleep habits, as reported by the adolescents in this study. The activities developed during UD were well received by the students who showed participative, motivated and evaluated positively the procedures used by the researcher. After the TU, students' knowledge about the concept of biological rhythms has been increased and they started to identify that the SWC changes throughout life and occur due biological and socio-cultural factors. Thus, the UD elaborated in this study represents a viable proposal to teach the concepts of biological rhythms contextualized to the content of Health, in high school

Influência do horário de trabalho, do gênero e de um programa de educação sobre o sono no ciclo sono/vigília de professores do ensino fundamental e médio

The teaching profession is often associated with extensive workload inside and outside the classroom, poor teaching conditions, among other challenges that can cause sleep problems. These problems may be even greater in women, due to the professional and domestic work hours and to the major sleep necessity. Considering that sleeping problems may result from the practice of poor sleep habits, sleep education programs are conducted with the aim to reduce sleep deprivation, irregularity on sleep schedules, daytime sleepiness and improve sleep quality. In this sense, the objective of this study is to evaluate the influence of working hours, gender and a sleep education program on sleeping habits, quality of sleep, daytime sleepiness and the level of stress in teachers of elementary and secondary education. For that, teachers filled the questionnaires that assessed: 1. Sleeping habits (Sleep & Health), 2. Chronotype (Horne & Ostberg), 3. Daytime sleepiness (Epworth Sleepiness Scale), 4. Sleep Quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), 5. Level of stress (The Inventory of Stress for Adults of Lipp) and 6. Daily pattern of sleep/wake cycle (Sleep Diary). The questionnaires 1, 4, 5 and 6 were repeated 3 weeks after the sleep education program. Teachers who begin work in the morning (7:11 ± 0:11 h) wake up earlier in the week and often have poor sleep quality compared to those who start in the afternoon (13:04 ± 00:12 h). Among those who begin work in the morning, the intermediate types and those with an evening tendency were more irregular in the wake up time than morning types and increased sleep duration on weekend. In relation to gender, women had longer sleep duration than men, although the majority presented excessive daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality. However, when work schedule and age are similar between genders, the difference in sleep duration becomes a tendency and the difference in the percentage of excessive daytime sleepiness disappears, but the poor sleep quality persists in women. With respect to teachers who have gone through the sleep education program, there was an increase in knowledge about the subject, which may have contributed to the reduction in the frequency of coffee consumption close to bedtime and to the sleep quality improved in 18 % of participants. In the control group, there were random differences in knowledge in 3rd stage, and sleep quality improved in only 9% of teachers. The participation in the sleep education program was not enough to change the hours of sleep and decrease stress of teachers. Therefore, the start time school in the morning was preponderant in determining the wake up time of teachers, especially for intermediates types and those with an evening tendency. Furthermore, the poor quality of sleep was more common in women, and the sleep education program contributed to increase knowledge on the subject and to improve sleep quality.

Pressão de sono e perfil acadêmico de estudante de medicina do 1º período da UFRN

Academic demands, new social context, new routines and decrease of the parental control, are factors that may influence the sleep pattern of freshman students at the University. Medical students from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) have a full-time course, subjects with high-level content, and, at the first semester, classes begin at 7 a.m. This group composed by young adults who still suffering with delayed sleep phase, common in adolescence, indicating that this class schedule can be inappropriate at this age. The reduction of nocturnal sleep during school days, and the attempt to recover sleep on free days – social jet lag (JLS), suggests that in the first semester, students suffer from high sleep pressure. High sleep pressure may reflect on cognitive tasks and performance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep pressure and the academic profile of medical students from the first semester of UFRN, characterizing this population socio-demographically and investigating possible impacts on therestactivity rhytm and academic performance. A sample of 88 students, healthy men and women awswered the following questionnaires: Pittsburgh Sleep Quality (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), Horne & Ostberg Chronotype (HO), Munich Chronotype (MCTQ) and “Health and Sleep” adapted. Actigraphy was used during 14 days to make actogramas and obtain non-parametric variables of the rest-activity rhythm and the grades of the morning schedule were used as academic performance. The JLS was used as a measure of sleep pressure. Statistics significance level was 95%. The population was sociodemographic homogeneous. Most students have healthy lifestyle, practice physical activity, use car to go to the university and take between 15 and 30 minutes for this route. Regarding CSV, most were classify as intermediate (38.6%) and evening (32%) chronotypes, needs to nap during the week, suffer daytime sleepiness and have poor sleep quality. 83% of the sample has at least 1h JLS, which led us to divide into two groups: Group <2h JLS (N = 44) and Group ≥ 2h JLS (N = 44). The groups have differences only in chronotype, showing that most evening individuals have more JLS, however, no differences were found in relation to sociodemographic aspect, rest-activity rhythm or academic performance. The homogeneity of the sample was limited to compare the groups, however, is alarming that students already present in the first half: JLG, poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness, which can be accentuated through the university years, with the emergence of night shifts and increased academic demand. Interventionsaddressingthe importance of good sleep habits and the change of the class start time are strategies aimed to improve student’s health.