Why your ‘lazy’ teen is actually sleep deprived
LISA SALMON
AS teenagers battle through exam season, many parents will be concerned about their stress levels as well as their revision (or lack of it). But one big issue underpins their wellbeing and ability to learn – the amount of sleep they’re getting.
Sleep deprivation is “one of the greatest threats to our teenagers’ physical and mental health,” according to Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright, authors of the new book Generation Sleepless. They say adolescents are caught in a perfect storm of omnipresent screens, academic overload and early school start times, which means they’re operating in a constant state of sleep debt.
“If you want to shock parents, teachers and sports coaches, tell them teenagers need over nine hours of sleep every night,” says child sleep expert Julie.
“Even more alarming is the reality that today’s teenagers sleep two to three hours less than that every night of the school week, racking up 10 hours or more of sleep debt each week. In fact, today’s teenagers are the most sleep-deprived population in human history.”
Julie explains that contrary to teenagers’ own beliefs, they aren’t actually mini-adults and are going through a critical period of brain development similar to when they were toddlers. And this means they need a lot of sleep.
“A massive amount of restructuring, refining, pruning and reorganisation takes place in the adolescent years, and this brain work mainly takes place during sleep,” she stresses.
Here, Julie and Heather outline their tips for how teenagers can get the right amount of sleep – and why they need it so much...
1.Bedtime should be early enough to get the right amount of sleep Heather advises teens to get to bed between eight to 10 hours before the time they need to wake up for school. “For a teen, eight hours is adequate sleep and nine to 10 hours is optimal,” she explains.
2.Don’t lie-in at weekends Teenagers should resist the temptation to sleep in on weekends, says Heather. “This confuses the body clock and makes the following week harder. Keep your wake time on the weekends to about one hour of your school day wake-up.”
3.Get some morning sunshine Adolescents should try to get five to 10 minutes of morning sun, even through the clouds, and regardless of the season, within one hour of waking up.
“Morning sun presses ‘go’ on the internal clock and regulates our sleep cycle,” explains Heather.
4.Understand teens have a later biological sleep clock
Julie says teens naturally have a later biological sleep clock. “The time when their bodies are ready to sleep and wake shifts about two hours later during the teen years,” she says. In addition to this natural sleep onset delay, today’s teens have to cope with an
6.Allow for pre-bed wind-down
The chemistry for sleep begins to change around two hours before bedtime, explains Heather, so the brain is tracking signals like light and activity to know it’s time to wind down.
“When the sun’s setting, turn down the lights inside your home to mimic this natural pattern,” she advises. “Teens should enter a ‘stress-free zone’ in which they don’t talk about important or anxiety-inducing topics, and try to say goodbye to friends online at least one hour before bedtime. This makes it possible for their brain to disconnect and allows them to become sleepy.”
7.More sleep means less moody teens Julie says it’s no coincidence that the current mental health crisis teenagers are experiencing has grown at the same time as the decline in their sleep.
She points out that studies show sleepless nights lead to low moods, anxiety and depression, and explains: “A sleep-deprived brain shows lowered activity in the prefrontal cortex, the source of reason, perspective, critical thinking and emotional regulation, and heightened activity in the amygdala in the lower brain where reactive, defensive and more negatively-skewed outlooks live.”
And she adds: “Teens who seem grouchy or lazy or non-responsive are probably severely sleep deprived.”
■ Generation Sleepless by Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright, Scribe UK, £14.99