A recent study performed by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of PA finds that increasing sleep for 14-18 year olds has a direct correlation to reduced BMI levels. The study proves that longer sleep in adolescents from 8 to 10 hours a night has drastic effects on lowering obesity, with the effectiveness more prominent for those teens with higher BMI rates.
Simply put – getting your teen to sleep more can have far-reaching effects on their overall health especially with regards to their weight and thus complications (such as diabetes) that can result from poor weight maintenance.
While this sounds like a no-brainer, convincing a teen to go to bed earlier and get more sleep has not proven to be effective. But it’s not only about education – teens naturally fall asleep later. In the years before adolescence, our children’s internal clocks (circadian rhythms) lead most children to become sleepy around 8 or 9 pm. However, at puberty a teen’s internal clock is changed to where the time he or she starts to feel sleepy is more like 11pm. This natural shift in the teen’s circadian rhythm causes them to feel alert later at night, making it difficult for them to fall asleep, and making it harder to enforce earlier bedtimes.
The solution then may be hard to accept – but can be important in a teen’s overall health now and in their future – let them sleep in! The weekend’s lazy mornings are a good time to allow them to catch up on those necessary zzzz’s. Additionally, moving the school day start time by just 30 – 60 minutes can have far-reaching effects on teen health and their ability to effectively participate in academics.
Sleep Insights 