Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite!

Teenagers in movies seem to all be the same. They're angsty, sleep in until noon, and dance the night away at parties. Most teens in real-life aren't like Cher from Clueless or Anna from Freaky Friday. However, those screenwriters got one thing right: teenagers rarely sleep. Whether it be staying up until 2 A.M. working on a project when you have to be up in four hours for school or facetiming friends for hours on end, we at shakeoffstress are wondering if being a "night owl" can contribute to stress. Let's ask the experts.

To start off, why is staying up such a bad thing? If you feel fine with four hours of sleep, then it may seem like there's nothing wrong with a 2-6 A.M. sleep schedule. However, the American Psychological Association writes that sleep is necessary for people of all ages to repair muscles and strengthen memory. Making a habit out of late nights and early mornings can cause anything from a lack of energy and interest to serious health problems that can contribute to weight gain, increased blood pressure, and problems while driving.

The APA also found that teenagers, specifically, can experience the effects of sleep deprivation to a higher degree than adults. These effects often surface in school, where sleep-deprived students may be more likely to experience poor concentration, fall asleep in class, and run into disciplinary issues. To back up this conclusion, a 1998 survey of 3,000 high school students was cited.

This survey was conducted by Amy Wolfson and Mary Carskadon, who both have PhDs. They found that students within their sample of 3,000 who reported getting C's, D's, and F's in school all had one thing in common: on average, they went to bed forty minutes later and slept for twenty-five minutes less than A and B students.

In addition, this APA article mentioned a study that had been in the works by researchers at the University of Minnesota for four years at the time of publication in 2001. This study focused on a school district that had modified their school schedule so that classes started an hour and twenty-five minutes later than in previous years.

The results indicated that students reacted positively to this change with a small increase in grades and hours spent asleep, as well as a decrease in negative behavior/feelings and sleepiness during the school day. Although it is not necessarily possible to start class at a later hour for all students, it is important to note that the positive effects of starting school later were all associated with an increase in time spent asleep.

These studies mentioned by the APA all seem to support the idea that increased time spent asleep can be beneficial for teenagers. However, they were all published before 2002, the year when the oldest teenagers of 2021 were born. Therefore, let's explore a more recent study to see if things have changed since the Y2K era.

Leila Tarokh, Jared Saletin, and Mary Carskadon are three researchers who attempted to figure out how sleep affected teenagers five years ago in 2016. They started their research with a survey regarding sleep habits of adolescents ages 10-19 living in the United States. Children aged ten recorded the most hours spent sleeping, with an average of 8.4 hours. However, high school seniors averaged 6.9 hours spent asleep, ninety minutes less than children aged 10.

This progression may seem natural- after all, a teenager probably doesn't need as much sleep as a ten year old. However, these three researchers noted that when subjects aged 10-12 and 15-18 were given an opportunity to sleep for ten hours, the average length slept was about 9.25 hours. Despite the age and developmental differences between the two age groups, they still slept for about the same amount of time without the pressure to wake up for school or other early morning obligations.

So, what do the researchers believe are the implications of teenagers sleeping for less than nine to ten hours a night? Similar to the article from the American Psychological Association, this 2016 study found a correlation between sleep deprivation and problems with memory. Sleep loss was associated with difficulties in executive function, difficulties in responding to positive stimuli, attention deficits, difficulties with regulating emotions, learning difficulties, and memory troubles.

These results were all collected from subjects who experienced short-term sleep deprivation. On the positive side, the researchers noted that healthy sleep habits could ease the negative effects of sleep deprivation.

Sleep isn't always easy to fit into your schedule, and some teens may feel that they function better with less hours of sleep than the recommended amount. The APA articles we highlighted here write that sleep is important for both physical and mental restoration, while sleep deprivation can lead to difficulties and/or decreased performance in school. A more recent study solidifies these findings, writing that children of all ages are biologically inclined to get about nine hours of sleep, despite the fact that they lose sleep as they get older. This loss of sleep could lead to cognitive difficulties.

While these findings may give you nightmares, we here at shakeoffstress want to reassure you that all of these studies emphasized that these negative effects could be minimized by getting the recommended amount of sleep at night (8-10 hours). We hope this article was informative and gave you some information about how being mindful of what time you go to bed can help to shake off stress. Thanks for reading :-)

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