United State – Getting enough sleep is vital for healthy living and productivity. According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), teenagers function best obtaining 8-10 hours of sleep every night. However, contrary to popular stereotypical notions that teenagers spend ‘all day’ sleeping, a new study says otherwise.
Researchers at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health have found that the number of hours slept per night has decreased among teenagers in the US over the past 20 years.
Among their findings, published in Pediatrics, the researchers observed that female students, racial and ethnic minorities and students of lower socioeconomic status were least likely to report regularly getting 7 or more hours sleep each night.
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Without adequate levels of sleep, adolescents can find their abilities to think and reason impaired and become more prone to mood swings and pimples. Lack of sleep is also associated with mental health issues, weight gain, academic problems and substance abuse.
The NSF state that many teenagers also suffer treatable sleep disorders that can reduce the amount of sleep they get, including narcolepsy, insomnia and sleep apnea.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data from Monitoring the Future – a nationally representative annual survey of adolescents in the US running from 1991 to 2012. The survey captured information for a total of 272,077 adolescents.
Students who were in the 8th, 10th and 12th grades reported how often they got 7 or more hours of sleep. Those who reported sleeping this amount “every day” or “almost every day” were categorized as obtaining that amount of sleep regularly, in contrast to those who “sometimes,” “rarely” or “never” slept for that amount of time.
