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World Sleep Day (a worksheet)

Activity 1
Discuss the questions:

1. How many hours of sleep do you generally need per night?

2. Have you ever walked in your sleep? Do you know anyone who does?
3. Have you ever fallen asleep in public? Why?
4. Tell about a memorable or strange dream you've had?

Activity 2
Look at the words. If you know a word, put a ‘+’ next to it, if you haven't met it before, put a ‘-’, if you
aren't sure about the meaning, put a ‘?’:

blanket light sleeper pillow

fall asleep take a nap sleep deprived
insomnia nightmare snore
keep smb awake oversleep yawn

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Fill the gaps with suitable words from above:

1. They say, if you ______________, it's better not to sleep on your back.
2. Not many things can ______________ me ______________: just really loud music, I guess.
3. Nowadays, a lot of teenagers and adults are ______________.
4. When you get into bed, you put your head on the ______________.
5. Earplugs may help a ______________ deal with noisy neighbours or roommates.
6. When I was at high school, I used to ____________ after the lessons, I was just too tired.
7. I'm very sensitive to cold. May I have another ______________?
8. A friend of mine suffers from ______________ – you know, when you just can't ______________ .
9. Why are you so late? Did you ______________ again?
10. During the night, some people have bad dreams called ______________.
11. The film was so boring that it was hard for them not to ______________.

Activity 3
Read the text quickly and match the paragraphs to the titles:

A. Hormonal changes
B. All-nighters
C. Great Impact
D. Way to Help

More than half of all teenagers may be sleep deprived, according to experts.
A combination of natural hormone changes and greater use of screen-based technology means
many teens are not getting enough sleep.

1. ______________
Research has suggested teenagers need nine hours' sleep to function properly. "Sleep is funda-
mentally important and it's been largely ignored as part of our biology," said Russell Foster,
Professor of Circadian Neuroscience at Oxford University. "With teenagers, here we have a
classic example where sleep could influence enormously the quality of life and, indeed, the
educational performance of our young people. Yet they're given no instruction about the
importance of sleep. Many of them suffer from insomnia or nightmares and struggle with
falling asleep. Sleep is a victim to the many other demands that are being made of teenagers."

2. ______________
At One Level Up, an internet cafe and gaming centre in Glasgow, I found a group of young
people who are used to very late nights. "There're things called 'grinds' which we have on Satur-
days which are an all-nighter until 10 in the morning," said 17-year-old Jack Barclay. "We go
home, sleep till 8 pm at night and then do the exact same thing again. I like staying up."
Fourteen-year-old Rachel admitted occasionally oversleeping or falling asleep in class because
she stayed up late at night playing computer games. "If it's a game that will save easily I'll go to
bed when my mum says, 'OK you should probably get some rest', but if it's a game where you
have to go to a certain point to save, I'll be like, 'five more minutes!' and then an hour later 'five
more minutes!', and it does mess up your sleeping pattern. "For me it takes me about an hour
to fall asleep and I'm lying there staring into nothing thinking 'I'm going to play THAT part of the
game tomorrow. I keep yawning and getting distracted, but it doesn't stop me from playing".

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3. ______________
Research has shown that teenagers prefer later bedtimes and are later to rise in the morning,
possibly because of the hormonal changes that occur during puberty. However Prof Foster said
electronic equipment influences this behaviour as computer screens and gaming devices may
have an effect in increasing levels of alertness. That will make it harder to get to sleep after
you've stopped playing or texting with friends.
"The great problem with teenagers is that you're not only biologically programmed to go to bed
late and get up late, but there are also many attractions like gaming, and Facebook, and texting,
and many teenagers are doing this into the early hours of the morning and delaying sleep even
further."

4. ______________
Psychologist Jane Ansell set up the charity in Scotland to help children with special needs estab-
lish good sleeping patterns. Her pilot studies in three Scottish schools suggested 52% of teenag-
ers were sleep deprived, and about 20% reported falling asleep in class at least once in the last
two weeks. While many teenagers have received exam grades over the summer, Ms. Ansell said
most of them did not realise that a healthy sleeping pattern could have improved their perfor-
mance. She added: "We probably don't understand how important sleep is. "It affects your
growth, your studies, and especially things like memory'.

(adapted from https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-23811690)

Activity 4
Read the text again and answer the questions:

1. What sleep disorders do some teenagers have?

2. What are 'grinds'?
3. Why might Rachel fall asleep in public?
4. How do hormones affect teenagers' sleeping patterns?
5. Why can gadgets prevent healthy sleep?
6. What's the connection between sleep and exam grades?

Activity 5
Choose a question from the list and ask one of your groupmates.

1. Have you ever had any sleep disorders?

2. How much time do you spend without your gadgets before going to bed? Why?
3. Do you ever stay up all night? Why?
4. How important is sleep for you?
5. What new have you learnt from the text above?

Activity 6
Roleplay the situations with your groupmates.

Created by Nadezda Popova for Skyteach, 2019 ©

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Homework
Watch the video and do the following tasks:

1. What do the following numbers refer to in the video?

a. 14 year-old
b. 8 hours
c. 30,000
d. 25%
e. 8:30

2. Answer the questions:

a. How many hours of sleep does a teenager need?
b. What is melatonin? What is special in the way teenagers’ bodies release it?
c. How is sleep related to feeling sad or hopeless?
d. What are the positive results of later start time of school?

3. Write a short paragraph, answering the question:

- What time in your opinion should the school start? Why?

Created by Nadezda Popova for Skyteach, 2019 ©