He used to go to sleep around p. This is really tough. Janet Rhude stopped enforcing bedtimes for her two teenage sons weeks ago. Rhude, an elementary school teacher who lives near Peterborough, Ont. Her year-old son now stays up well past midnight. Both kids are doing their school work, and with little else for them to do, Ms.
Giving teenagers the independence to stay up late and socialize with friends during the pandemic may actually be a good thing, says Allan Findlay, a Toronto-based therapist. Teenagers need a sense of autonomy, time to reflect and to socialize with friends. They usually get the chance to do that at school or during extracurricular activities. Now, however, they might only have the opportunity to talk to friends online or just spend time alone late at night, Mr. The teenage years are a formative period.
The brain and body experience significant development, and the transition to adulthood brings important changes that affect emotions, personality, social and family life, and academics. Sleep is essential during this time, working behind the scenes to allow teens to be at their best. Unfortunately, research indicates that many teens get far less sleep than they need. Both the National Sleep Foundation and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine agree that teens need between 8 and 10 hours of sleep per night.
Getting this recommended amount of sleep can help teens maintain their physical health, emotional well-being, and school performance. At the same time, teens face numerous challenges to getting consistent, restorative sleep.
Recognizing those challenges helps teens and their parents make a plan so that teens get the sleep they need. Sleep is vital for people of any age. For teens, though, profound mental, physical, social, and emotional development requires quality sleep. Sleep benefits the brain and promotes attention, memory, and analytical thought. It makes thinking sharper, recognizing the most important information to consolidate learning.
Sleep also facilitates expansive thinking that can spur creativity. Most people have experienced how sleep can affect mood, causing irritability and exaggerated emotional reactions. Over time, the consequences can be even greater for teens who are adapting to more independence, responsibility, and new social relationships. Prolonged sleep loss may negatively affect emotional development , increasing risks for interpersonal conflict as well as more serious mental health problems.
Mental health disorders like anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder have routinely been linked to poor sleep , and sleep deprivation in teens can increase the risk of suicide. Improving sleep in adolescents may play a role in preventing mental health disorders or reducing their symptoms. Sleep contributes to the effective function of virtually every system of the body.
It empowers the immune system, helps regulate hormones, and enables muscle and tissue recovery. For example, researchers have found that adolescents who fail to get enough sleep have a troubling metabolic profile that may put them at higher risk of diabetes and long-term cardiovascular problems.
Sleep deprivation can affect the development of the frontal lobe, a part of the brain that is critical to control impulsive behavior. Drug and alcohol use, smoking, risky sexual behavior, fighting, and carrying a weapon have also been identified as more likely in teens who get too little sleep.
Insufficient sleep in teens can make them prone to accidental injury and even death. Of particular concern is an elevated risk of accidents as a result of drowsy driving. Studies have found that sleep deprivation can reduce reaction times with an effect similar to that of significant alcohol consumption. In teens, the impact of drowsy driving can be amplified by a lack of driving experience and a higher rate of distracted driving.
By almost all accounts, many teenagers in America are not getting the recommended hours of sleep per night. The problem may be getting worse. Estimates place the rate of insomnia in adolescents as high as Insufficient sleep among teens has been found to be higher among women than men.
Older teens report getting less sleep than people in early adolescence. Surveys have also found that teens who identify as Black, Asian, and multiracial have the highest rates of sleeping less than eight hours per night. There is no single reason for sleep insufficiency among teens.
Several factors contribute to this problem, and these factors may vary from teenager to teenager. Experts believe this is a two-fold biological impulse affecting the circadian rhythm and sleep-wake cycle of teens.
Second, the body waits longer to start producing melatonin , which is the hormone that helps promote sleep. If allowed to sleep on their own schedule, many teens would get eight hours or more per night, sleeping from 11 p. With reduced sleep on weekdays, teens may try to catch up by sleeping in on the weekend, but this may exacerbate their delayed sleep schedule and inconsistent nightly rest.
Teens often have their hands full. School assignments, work obligations, household chores, social life, community activities, and sports are just some of the things that can require their time and attention. They may stay up late during the week to finish homework or during the weekend when hanging out with friends, both of which can reinforce their night owl schedule.
Pressure to succeed while managing these extensive commitments can be stressful, and excess stress has been known to contribute to sleeping problems and insomnia. Screen time late into the evening can contribute to sleeping problems. Evidence also points to suppressed melatonin production from exposure to the light from cell phones. Some teens have poor sleep because of an underlying sleep disorder.
Adolescents can be affected by obstructive sleep apnea OSA , which causes repeated pauses in breathing during sleep. OSA frequently causes fragmented sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness. Though less common, teens can have sleep disorders like Restless Leg Syndrome RLS , which involves a strong urge to move the limbs when lying down, and narcolepsy , which is a disorder affecting the sleep-wake cycle.
Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression can be a challenge to quality sleep in teens as well as adults. Insufficient sleep can contribute to these conditions as well, creating a bidirectional relationship that can worsen both sleep and emotional wellness. Lack of sleep may also contribute to more pronounced symptoms of these conditions.
Teens who are having sleep problems should start by talking with their doctor about how much sleep they are getting and how it impacts their daily life. Their pediatrician can work to identify any underlying causes and craft the most appropriate and tailored treatment. A beneficial step is for teens to review and improve their sleep hygiene , which includes their sleep environment and habits. Some healthy sleep tips that can help in this process include:.
This means that biological time — which determines when you feel sleepy — is different from social time, which is set by clocks and customs about when things should be done.
When biological time and social time clash, it can lead to sleep deprivation. The social starting times for school and university — typically between 7. The biological changes that teenagers go through mean they need to go to bed later, wake up later and get up to eight or nine hours of sleep. As it stands, many teenagers are losing two to three hours of sleep every school night. The solution is simple in theory: starting times should be adjusted to reflect the fact that teenagers need later starts as they get older.
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention has drawn together many scientific studies to demonstrate that US schools should set later starting times.
There is extensive medical evidence about the harms of starting school or university too early: doing so places teenage students at greater risk of obesity, depression, drug use and bad grades.
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