Lack of Sleep is bad for IQ

By Madhurie Singh, June 07, 2013

My day has stretched after schools have reopened.  From sleeping late to waking up late in the last 2 months we are all spoiled royally by the summer holidays.

Now not only we have to wake up to go to school, we have to wake up 2 hours earlier ! 🙁

My sons school timing has changed from 9 am to 7 am. But the bus timing has changed from 8:20am  to 6:30am!  So you can imagine I have to wake up at 5:30am !  I am a late night worker. So it’s such a pain to work late and forcefully wake myself and then my son to get ready for the school!

So after a week of understanding the damn schedule change, we planned a few changes that seem to work, though it’s been only 2 days of implementation.

  • Get Tatasky to record my favorite program Kennedy, Invention Intervention, Law and Order, Practice and Gray’s Anatomy.
  • Sleep before 10pm at any cost.
  • So before sleeping, the entire preparation for breakfast and lunch box is done. So much so that my teapot is filled with water and kept on the burner :P, tawa and roti making gadgets are all placed on the platform. Empty lunch boxes are lined up and bottles filled with water. If possible veggies are chopped or cooked and filled in the lunch box with only roti to be done.
  • The breakfast table is ready with almonds or any other dry fruit.
  • The uniforms are out and shoes are all ready to be worn are set by the boys.
  • The homework and bags are now done just after they finish their evening snacks. Nothing for late night or early mornings.
  • My cooking for lunch is done by 9 am so that I am also free to work without any disturbances in my home office.
  • After 2 pm again the home office turns into only home.
  • A must revision session for older son after his food in the afternoon along with his homework, gives me loads of satisfaction. Being a control freak at times is very taxing.
  • But the good thing is that for the second son, I am thorough with what and how to teach him, that too with 100 % attention to him only which he loves. Actually who doesn’t?
  • So by 6pm am again I am a free bird. (By the way this time my Love birds did not make their nest in our balcony :(. I think they were intimidated by the presence of their nest made by them the last year, that I did not remove.) I have a good time watching recorded TV programs and skipping the ads. There is a trick that I found while forwarding the ads. Since there is a timer now flashing, all it needs is to forward the recording by 5 min the moment ads are shown. These two hours are my own time with only occasional calls from family and friends that I entertain. Dinner is also ready by this time.
  • By 8 pm kids are back after their 2 hours playtime. They bathe and watch Tv,  eat dinner or play game till 9 pm as per their choice. Time to do any project work as the whole family is around to give inputs.
  • Kids hit the bed by 9:30pm.
  • Since my sons are fond of reading, they now have to utilize the one hour bus ride to read the story books. I think they are liking it, at least while going to the school. The ride while coming back from the school is mostly for naps or chats. Either is good for them.

So why am I writing these things here!

Mainly because I want to go back to reading this post after a few weeks to see what I planned and where we are.

Also because I want to emphasize that change is not easy, yet it’s not difficult to adapt quickly if we plan it asap and meticulously follow it.

And lastly, after I came to know from the program “The United Stats of America” on the History channel, that lack of sleep, leads to lowering of  IQ by 1 point each day, we are all very consciously working to keep intact what we have :)!


Hi Sreelekha Nair My new forum SchoolKhojo.com is up. If you want to ask new questions or start any discussion it will be great. I really want to see you on SchoolKhojo.com forum to start a new discussion or answer to someone's questions.

More or less I have similar plan, apart from the afternoon as I am working. I super liked the tea pot, tawa & tiffin-bottels preparation. I'll add this to my to-do list :) Thank you Madhurie!

Hi Susan, Kindly post your query in www.schoolkhojo.com. http://www.schoolkhojo.com/index.php?/user/forum/index/9

Welcome Susan! I would love to hear a few of your routines to help me too.

You bet Sreelekha! With kids of my own and third website schoolkhojo.com, I am going crazy with no sleep. You are good, you do not need any help my dear. But this time I can do with the help.

going through the same school-opening phase:) Thanks for sharing your ideas Madhurie...helps people like me to set a benchmark!

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