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The less sleep teenagers get, the more ill-equipped they are to navigate the challenges of adolescence, health experts say. Yet the amount of sleep that teens are getting each night is the lowest it’s been since 1991, new research shows.
For U.S. adolescents and teenagers in grades eight, 10 and 12, sleep levels have steadily decreased over the years from 1991 to 2023, according to researchers from the University of Minnesota, Columbia University and the University of Michigan. Their paper, published on May 12, used data from Monitoring the Future, an ongoing survey of over 400,000 U.S. students.
In the survey, students indicated how often they got at least seven hours of sleep a night and how often they felt they were getting an adequate amount of sleep. Sleep duration and levels of feeling rested lowered as adolescents aged, the researchers found. By 2023, just 22.3% of the older teenagers reported sleeping for at least seven hours a night.
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Teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 years old should sleep between eight and 10 hours a day, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “Even losing less than one hour of sleep per night for a week has been shown to negatively affect children’s mood, physical well-being, and ability to cope at school,” says Dr. Arezou Heshmati, a pediatric neurologist and sleep specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital and Columbia University, who was not involved in the research process.
Non-Hispanic Black teens, Hispanic/Latino teens and those whose parents have received less education sleep even less than their peers, according to the paper. “The widening gaps we’re seeing by race and socioeconomic status also suggest that sleep is becoming another area where inequities take hold early in life,” Rachel Widome, a lead author of the research paper and a professor at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, said in a research brief for the university.
4 ways not getting enough sleep can impact teens’ productivity and success
Plenty of potential factors could cause teens to get less rest, Heshmati says: a combination of biological changes like puberty, early start times at school, stress and lifestyle habits like screen-time use.
Lack of sleep, says Heshmati, can lead to issues for teens including:
- Poorer school performance
- An increase in behavioral and emotional difficulties
- Lower quality of life
- Higher rates of depression and obesity
Unaddressed mental health issues like depression in adolescent years can “extend to adulthood, impairing both physical and mental health and limiting opportunities to lead fulfilling lives as adults,” according to the World Health Organization.
Tips on how to help your teen improve their sleep habits
Improving a teenager’s sleep can be hard, because teens often resist advice coming from their parents or older adults, Heshmati notes. Another issue: Many parents fall asleep before their teens do, and often don’t realize how late their kids stay up, says Michele Borba, child psychologist and author of “Thrivers: The Surprising Reasons Why Some Kids Struggle and Others Shine.”
To improve the chances of your child going to bed around the same time, try developing a policy where everyone in the house, including parents, end screen time 30 minutes before bed, Borba advises. She suggests a handful of other methods for improving your teen’s sleep patterns, too:
- Keeping them on consistent sleep schedule as much as possible, including on weekends.
- Buying them an alarm clock so they don’t depend on their phones for an alarm. When teens sleep with their phones nearby, they’re more likely to keep using them in bed and stay up later than they intended, Borba says. Blue light from phone screens can make it harder to fall asleep once they finally put their phones down for the night, research shows.
- Finding ways to make their room more conducive for sleep, like blackout curtains or white-noise machines.
- Having dinner at the same time each evening.
- Helping your teen find optimal methods for calming their brains down before bed, from meditation or prayer to taking a walk in the park before sunset.
Getting your teen to follow healthy habits will be a lot easier if they come to their own conclusions about why sleep is important, and understand how getting less sleep can strongly affect their energy levels, athletic performance, mood and overall success, says Heshmati.
“Rather than simply instructing students to sleep more, we can encourage them to explore the science of sleep themselves through research projects, peer discussions, presentations, wellness initiatives or student-led sleep awareness clubs,” she suggests. “Teenagers often listen to and influence one another more effectively than adults can.”
Always consult with your child’s healthcare provider before making any major changes that can impact their health.
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