(Radio Iowa) – A sleep expert says Iowa parents should start pushing their kids’ bedtimes forward this week to get them adjusted to waking up early well before school starts. Dr. Allen Foster, a sleep medicine physician at Emplify Health by Gundersen, says it’s important for all of us to get a good night’s sleep. “When we’re not getting sufficient sleep, it impacts relationships, learning, emotional stability, and simply quality of life in total,” Foster says. “Even two nights a week of insufficient sleep is enough to be associated with a significant increase in depressive symptoms.” Foster says we all have different sleep cycles and sleep needs, depending on our age, but kids can be quite varied, compared to adults.

“Typically, we’re talking ten-to-13 hours of sleep is necessary for preschoolers, nine-to-12 for school-aged children and eight-to-ten for teens,” Foster says. “And adults, most of us need eight to sometimes nine hours, but as a society, we tend to be sleep-deprived, and children — teens especially — tend to be sleep-deprived.” Foster says kids may grumble about the earlier bedtime, but they’ll likely appreciate it once school bells ring, so the change from summer to fall hours won’t be so abrupt. “During the summertime, when they’re allowed to be on their own biological schedule, they’re going to be up later, and sleep in later,” Foster says. “Then, when school starts and all of a sudden you have to be up and in and trying to function and be performing cognitively and socially and emotionally, it’s much, much more of a challenge.”

Given the amount of sleep kids need to stay healthy, Foster says he’d really like to see more Iowa schools start classes later. “In reality, we shouldn’t start school before 8:30 in the morning for middle school and high schoolers,” Foster says, “however, unfortunately, probably 70% of kids have schools that start earlier than that.” He calls sleep the “silent architect” of health, immune function, cognitive and mental functions, and regulation of our emotional and metabolic systems.

Emplify Health by Gundersen has clinics in Calmar, Decorah, Fayette, Lansing, Postville and Waukon, and a hospital in West Union.