Teens and Troubled Sleep

Photo Credit: Chuck Patch

Any parent of a teenager knows that teens don't keep regular bedtime hours, and it can be a chore to rouse them out of bed in the morning. Why is this the case? Does a preteen need as much sleep as a 15-year-old? Or more? What are the rules of disengagement from the world when it comes to adolescents?

First, let's get one thing straight: Despite the fact sleep is required for life - regardless of age - it's seen as a luxury among many today because it competes with our highly plugged-in society. We live in a virtual world now that steals our attention 24/7. We can, if we choose, work and communicate in the middle of the night through texting, emailing, and blogging to the universe (and that includes kids old enough to engage in such activities). Just a few years ago that wasn't possible. It has changed most everything, including bedtimes.

Shifts in Rhythms, Changes in Bedtimes
What hasn't changed, however, is a human's need to sleep based on a circadian rhythm. Everyone's body clock or circadian "pacemaker" ticks at a different rate, but as you age your pacemaker will speed up or slow down, thus altering how your body responds to that 24-hour cycle. Teenagers typically don't go to bed much before 11 at night (no matter how much you try) due to their rhythm. From the age of about 15 to 25, that pacemaker slows down so a 17-year-old's body usually won't want to go to sleep early or get up early. Sometime during our late 20s the body clock speeds back up again so it matches the 24-hour day.

That said, it helps to realize that problems with sleep actually can start long before a kid turns 13. School-aged children - kids between 5 and 12 years - need 10 to 11 hours of sleep, which doesn't happen in many families. Trouble can set in as school gets more demanding, and life gets busier with sports and other extracurricular and social activities. Kids at this age also become more interested in the very things that steal sleep from adults, such as the television, cell phones, computers (including the Internet), and yes...caffeine products. For example, playing on the computer or watching TV close to bedtime has been associated with bedtime resistance, difficulty falling asleep, anxiety around sleep, and sleeping fewer hours.

What's more, poor sleep can lead to mood swings, behavioral problems like hyperactivity, and cognitive problems that affect their ability to learn in school. This can then continue into a kid's teenage years, when school gets even more demanding and social activities entice an adolescent to choose wakefulness over sleep.

Even though a teenager's biological sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and waking, they still need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep each night to function best (for some, 8 1/2 hours is sufficient), which doesn't typically jibe with the morning school bell. For this reason, most teens frequently don't get enough sleep and they can struggle with staying awake during classes.

Cutting into a teenager's sleep hygiene is the irregular sleep pattern they keep throughout the week. Very few teens maintain the same exact schedule seven days a week. They prefer to stay up late and sleep in late on the weekends, which can affect their biological clocks and hurt the quality of their sleep during the school week. Teens can also suffer from treatable sleep disorders, such as restless legs syndrome or sleep apnea.

Multiple sleep studies have been done in recent years to look at teen sleep, some of which have revealed surprising findings. A recent study, for example, indicates that the prevalence of insomnia among adolescents is high - and is associated with future physical and psychological problems. That's not something any parent wants to hear. Getting through adolescence is tough enough. What's more, most people don't realize (or appreciate) the fact that its pervasiveness is comparable to that of other major psychiatric disorders such as mood, anxiety, disruptive, and substance use disorders.

A study like this is a call to action. A teen's bout with insomnia may have more serious consequences in the long term as they continue to mature and grow. The brain, for example, does not finish its complete development until one's early to mid twenties. So if a person has insomnia for years through those critical phases of one's physical and psychological development, what does that mean for one's future health?

A lot.

Sleep and health go hand in hand at every age, from young to old. With so many opportunities to engage in wakefulness today, my hope is that people pay more serious attention to their sleep patterns if they don't feel their absolute best day in and day out. This goes for adults and parents of kids who clearly aren't functioning at their best. Bedtimes are important- and not just for kids. As parents, we need to set examples and be open with our kids about the value of sleep. To that end, here are a few pointers:

• Make sufficient sleep a family priority. It's important for the health of all family members.


• Help your adolescent child try to establish regular bedtime routines, creating a quiet and comfortable bedroom. Televisions and computers need to be out of the bedroom and caffeine should not be part of a child's diet. Help your kids prepare for bed by making sure they disengage from stimulating activities at least 30 minutes prior to bedtime. Reading, for example, is much more relaxing and sleep-inducing than emailing or talking on the cell phone.


• Learn to recognize sleep problems. The most common sleep problems in children include difficulty falling asleep, nighttime awakenings, snoring, stalling and resisting going to bed, having trouble breathing, and loud or heavy breathing while sleeping. These sleep problems can be evident in daytime behavior such as being overtired, sleepy or cranky.


• Talk to your child's doctor about sleep - even if your doctor doesn't breach the topic.

The better we help growing, maturing kids learn to balance their disengagement from the world and their wakeful engagements with the world, the better we can, in fact, help them participate in life to the fullest.

Good Night.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael Breus, PhD
The Sleep Doctor

Related Topics:

• Common Sleep Disorders in Teens
• Sleepy Teen? Here’s Why – and What You Can Do
• WebMD Video: Teens and Caffeine
• Sleep Disorders: Member Discussion
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Do Your Kids Have High Blood Pressure? Check Their Sleep.

By now we are all aware that heart disease is the number one killer among men and women in the US. But here's a new twist: how well your children sleep in their teenage years could have an impact on their ability to stave off cardiovascular problems in their adult lives.

A fresh study that I just read about online reveals that sleep-deprived teens, which includes teens who don't get high-quality sleep, could be setting themselves up for heart disease later on. I was surprised to learn that this reflects the first study to look at the links between high blood pressure and sleep quality in healthy adolescents. That's right: healthy adolescents.

So we're not talking about special cases of teens out on the fringes of the bell curve who suffer from things like sleep apnea or other health problems. The researchers were also careful to rule out links explained by socioeconomic status.

Bottom line: if your healthy kid is getting poor sleep, he or she is at risk for elevated blood pressure.

The culprit to teenage sleeplessness? As noted in the study, music players, computers, and phones could be partly to blame, and I agree with that statement. Our kids are bombarded by digital electronics today that keep them up, alert, and online. Gone are the days you'd say goodbye to your classmates at the end of the last class and go home to a quiet, wire-free room to do your homework (if only!). Kids these days write more text messages and e-mail than they do research papers and book reports.

How many hours of sleep is your teen getting? Do you know? On average, they need about 9 hours of sleep, which his very difficult to get these days. Policing your teens sleep habits can be challenging, if not seemingly impossible. May I suggest...

• Speaking openly with your teen about setting boundaries for using the computer and cell phone late at night for purposes other than homework.


• Reminding them about the value of sleep. They can avoid the routine frustration of having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning to go to school, much less stay awake in class.


• Scheduling a check-up for your child early in the school year. Bring up any concerns you have with your kid's doctor - sometimes hearing advice from someone other than you will get your kid to change habits.


• Practicing what you try to preach. If your sleep habits are terrible, guess what - so will your kids' habits. Establish a healthy sleep hygiene and your kids will notice. Your whole family will benefit.

We often associate high blood pressure with adulthood, but it helps to remind ourselves that our health status throughout our lives can be predicated on the habits we establish as youths. You could be doing your teen more good than you can appreciate now by bearing this in mind. High blood pressure does not discriminate. And neither does getting a restful night's sleep. It's for all of us.

This article is cross-posted at Dr. Breus's official blog, The Insomnia Blog.

Related Topics:

• Common Sleep Disorders in Teens
• Child Heart Disease Risks on the Rise