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Why We Sleep Chapter 14. Hurting and Helping Your Sleep
Author: Matthew Walker Publisher: Scribner Publish Date: 2017-10-3 Review Date: 2023-4-18 Status:📚
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An added reason for making sleep a top priority in the education and lives of our children concerns the link between sleep deficiency and the epidemic of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).
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If you make a composite of these symptoms (unable to maintain focus and attention, deficient learning, behaviorally difficult, with mental health instability), and then strip away the label of ADHD, these symptoms are nearly identical to those caused by a lack of sleep.
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Most people know the name of the common ADHD medications: Adderall and Ritalin. But few know what these drugs actually are. Adderall is amphetamine with certain salts mixed in, and Ritalin is a similar stimulant, called methylphenidate. Amphetamine and methylphenidate are two of the most powerful drugs we know of to prevent sleep and keep the brain of an adult (or a child, in this case) wide awake.