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Lack of Sleep Impairs Teens' Health, Academic Progress

By Hugh C. McBride

The bane of first-period teachers, and the punch line in more than a few sitcoms and comic strips, the "sleepy student" is often seen as emblematic of a slacker society in which late-night revelry and endemic indifference render American adolescents incapable of meeting the most modest of academic standards: consciousness.

But when science enters the equation, it turns out that biology is much more to blame than attitude is. Today's teens aren't getting enough sleep - and it's the adults' fault, not theirs.

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How Much is Enough?
Ask most Americans how much sleep an individual needs to get, and odds are that their answer will be "eight hours." The notion that humans need to spend one-third of every day asleep is one of the more commonly known health-related facts. But when it comes to teens, the conventional wisdom isn't so wise.

Most sleep experts advise that eight hours might be adequate for an adult, but youth aged 10 to 17 should be getting between nine and nine-and-a-half hours of sleep each night. For a student who has to wake up at 6 a.m. in order to get to school on time, this translates into a 9 p.m. bedtime. Though this simple math makes this appear to be an easily solved problem, two obstacles stand in the way: school schedules and circadian rhythms.

School schedules - For most American teenagers, school is much more than a place to perfect one's mastery of the infamous "three r's." Extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, and school-related work-study or volunteer programs keep many kids busy long after the dismissal bell has rung.

Factor in after-school jobs, homework and study sessions, meals, and a little time spent relaxing in front of the television or on the computer, and it's easy to see how the day can rapidly fill up.
Circadian rhythms - Even teens whose after-school calendars are relatively clear might find themselves bleary-eyed at 7 a.m., and not because they stubbornly insisted on staying up to see Letterman's monologue. Scientists have discovered that circadian rhythms - the inner clocks that influence functions such as sleep, body temperature, and appetite - undergo marked changes during a child's transition into adolescence.

"Before adolescence, these circadian rhythms direct most children to naturally fall asleep around 8 or 9 p.m.," the Mayo Clinic reports in the Teen Health section of its website. "But puberty changes a teen's internal clock, delaying the time he or she starts feeling sleepy - often until 11 p.m. or later."

Thus, though science says a teen needs get more than nine hours of sleep every night, both her school schedule and her biological clock might be making that goal nearly impossible to achieve.

"Almost all teen-agers, as they reach puberty, become walking zombies because they are getting far too little sleep," Cornell University psychologist James B. Maas, Ph.D., told Monitor on Psychology staff writer Siri Carpenter for an Oct. 9, 2001 article.

The Effects of Sleeplessness
The National Sleep Foundation has reported that as few as 15 percent of American teens are getting an adequate amount of sleep every night. And a series of studies and a wealth of anecdotal evidence have revealed that the results of this epidemic of teen sleeplessness range from distracting to deadly.

"Lack of sleep disrupts every physiologic function in the body," Eve Van Cauter of the University of Chicago said in an Oct. 9, 2005 article in the Washington Post. "We have nothing in our biology that allows us to adapt to this behavior."

In addition to having difficulty concentrating in school, and thus learning less and performing more poorly on exams, individuals who experience extended or recurring periods of sleep deprivation may also be at higher risk for the following:

Accidents - The American Automobile Association has reported that drivers who got between six and seven hours of sleep are twice as likely to be involved in a "drowsy driving" accident as are those who got eight hours of shuteye. When the amount of sleep drops below five hours, the risk increases by as much as 400 percent.
Diabetes - A 1999 study discovered that 11 healthy young men who slept only four hours per night for six nights showed insulin and blood sugar levels similar to those of individuals who were "on the verge of diabetes."
Heart Disease - A 2003 study that was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that women who slept five hours or less per night were 45 percent more likely to suffer heart attacks than were women who averaged eight hours of sleep or more.
Impaired Brain Function - A 2000 study led by researchers with the University of California, San Diego, found that the brains of otherwise healthy young people worked harder, but achieved less when sleep-deprived. The ability to perform tasks related to high-level thinking was particularly impaired.
Obesity - Lack of sleep can disrupt the body's production of appetite-regulating hormones, resulting in a tendency to overeat.

Making Changes
To combat the effects of sleeplessness and to more adequately meet the biological needs of teenage students, some school districts have experimented with delaying the start of school until 8:30 or 9 a.m. A few attempts at drastically altering the school day, such as conducting class in the evening rather than the morning, have also been made, but considerations such as extracurricular activities, bus schedules, after-school jobs, and the general disruption to family schedules has limited the number of schools that try this approach.

Parents are advised to help ensure that their children get adequate amounts of sleep by developing consistent evening routines, limiting their nighttime activities, especially during the school week, and ensuring that they get to bed at a reasonable hour. Children who experience severe fatigue or who have extreme difficulty falling and staying asleep should be evaluated by a health care professional to rule out the existence of a sleep disorder or other physical condition.

Ultimately, helping teenagers to understand that their bodies are craving more sleep, and that getting more shuteye can have a positive effect on virtually every other aspect of their lives, requires an ongoing effort in order to avoid potentially devastating consequences.

"This is a much bigger problem than people think," sleep expert Richard D. Simon, Jr., M.D., told Joyce Frieden for her Aug. 21, 2000 WebMD article. "They underestimate the problems of being sleepy in the daytime and how it impairs mood and affects performance."

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