Now that school is back in session, I wonder if everyone has gotten back into healthy sleep habits. I know at our house, the “boys” had the weirdest sleep habits over the holidays. It seems that the high school and college crowd takes advantage of the break to “catch up” on sleep. That means sleeping from about 1 or 2 am until at least noon. That also means that I rarely saw my children awake. The same thing was reported by many of my adolescent patients. The ones that came in for morning appointments looked like they had literally rolled out of bed, and were not even fully awake. They looked at it as a “punishment” to have to go to an appointment before noon. I, on the other hand know that morning appointments tend to get seen in a more timely manner than those late in the afternoon when I have had a chance to get behind (despite my best efforts, I promise!).
Now the statistics released from the Youth Behavior and Risk Survey of 12,000 high school students just reinforced that our teens are truly sleep deprived. Only about eight percent of teens reported getting the recommended nine hours of sleep on school nights. There were 10 percent of teens that reported sleeping only five hours a night, while another 25 percent reported getting six hours of sleep on average on school nights. Thus, it appears that adolescent sleep deprivation is rampant and cumulative.
As any parent knows, kids of all ages get irritable when they don’t get enough sleep. Lack of sleep also leads to difficulty learning and concentrating, but may also affect other activities outside of academics. Teen drivers may be more prone to have automobile accidents when sleep deprived. They are also found to have a higher incidence of depression. There are also studies that lack of sleep may contribute to obesity.
With a new semester starting what better time to review bedtimes and sleep habits. I firmly believe that all children need to have bedtimes and that means adolescents too. For that to happen a family needs to not only be organized to get everyone ready for bed, but a parent needs to check on their teen to make sure that they are going to bed. I know it is hard to stay up after a long day at work, but if unsupervised many teens will stay up. They are not only studying, but they are on line on Facebook, or texting on their phones or playing video games or watching TV. Teens are the kings and queens of multitasking, or so they think and somehow the time just slips away. That is until morning when they are exhausted.
So make a commitment to “tuck in your teen”, even if that means setting your alarm to get up and do it.
That’s your daily dose, we’ll chat again tomorrow.
Teens and sleep is a huge topic. The fact is they simply are on a different sleep cycle than most of us. Like adults, teens struggle to fall asleep because their brains are so stimulated at night. Although their thoughts may be different, they worry just like we do. Kids are reporting feeling more stress than ever before. While we can’t force our teens to go to sleep we can teach them relaxation techniques to help them unwind and make sleep possible. Ideally, parents start doing this with their children at an early age so it becomes part of their nightly routine. Simple guided meditation can be a great place to start.