Insufficient sleep harms children's mental health: Study.

ISLAMABAD -- Inadequate nighttime sleep alters several aspects of children's emotional health, warn researchers.

For the study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, the research team studied 53 children ages 7-11 over more than a week. The children completed an in-lab emotional assessment twice, once after a night of healthy sleep and again after two nights where their sleep was restricted by several aspects of children's emotional health.

'After sleep restriction, we observed changes in the way children experience, regulate and express their emotions,' said study lead author Candice Alfano, Professor at the University of Houston in the US.

The multi-method assessment had children view a range of pictures and movie clips eliciting both positive and negative emotions while the researchers recorded how children responded on multiple levels, Medical Daily reported .

'Study based on subjective reports of emotion are critically important, but they don't tell us much about the specific mechanisms through which insufficient sleep elevates children's psychiatric risk,' Alfano said.

The research team...