What is dangerous teenage lack of sleep?
Last reviewed: 18.10.2021
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In order to work normally during the day, everyone should sleep well at night. For teenagers, this means that they need to sleep about nine hours every night. But practice shows that in reality this is far from the case - teenagers sleep much less than they are supposed to. Hence - inattention in class, absent-mindedness, memory gaps, general weakening of the body, frequent colds. According to the National Survey Fund, only about one fifth of adolescents (20%) sleep every night as much as they are entitled to by age.
Internal teens hours
Adolescence is always to blame when it comes to sleep. The internal clock of an organism, officially called circadian rhythms, changes as puberty rises. Melatonin, a brain hormone associated with sleep, in adolescents is released late in the evening. Therefore, if the younger child easily falls asleep quite early, the adolescents still do not get tired, and after a few hours they need a good night's sleep, longer than it should be - because at about seven in the morning they need to get up to school or a lyceum. So it turns out that at night the teenager can not sleep for a long time, and in the morning he can not wake up, but he has to do it because of a strict social schedule.
This is becoming a serious problem for adolescents with a large academic employment, which depletes the body even more against a background of chronic lack of sleep. To ensure that the child is not late for school, it should be awakened an hour earlier than usual, so that the spillage is not hasty for him and because of this stressful. But also to care about that the teenager went to bed on time, it is also necessary.
The effect of lack of sleep on the body of a teenager
When teenagers do not sleep, this can lead to serious side effects. The child is difficult to concentrate in school, he can sit and doze in class, which causes a natural bewilderment of the teacher. This can lead to a decline in productivity and study. Unfortunately, this is a standard problem for teenagers. In extreme cases, lack of sleep can lead to unmotivated aggression, malicious behavior or depression (which can lead to even greater problems with sleep).
Lack of sleep can also make a teenager more prone to acne and other skin problems. Poor concentration and delayed response, characteristic of children with lack of sleep, can have very dangerous consequences. Sometimes the problems of teens with sleep are symptoms of illness or other medical reasons, such as side effects from medications, sleep apnea, anemia or mononucleosis. Then a visit of parents with a teenager to a pediatrician and a psychologist is necessary.
What can parents do to get a teenager to sleep?
Communicating with a teenage child, parents can make proper sleep a priority in his daily routine. First of all, you need to develop a sleep mode and those hours in which the teenager wakes up. It is very important to support this plan even on weekends. If the child does not sleep at night, and then roll in bed until the afternoon of Saturday or Sunday, it will be very difficult again to change his internal biorhythms. Then it becomes almost impossible for a teenager to fall asleep on Monday in normal time and wake up early in the morning.
To the child fall asleep and wake up in time, you need to create conditions for him to have a good sleep. Let your child's room have a dim light, and before going to sleep you need to turn off the computer screen. Turn off the external noise. Still need to make sure that the room of a teenager is warm enough.
In the morning, you need to avoid bright light and sun, which will allow a teenager to wake up comfortably. If the teenager is tired and wants to take a nap after dinner, limit the time of his sleep to 30 minutes; the opportunity to sleep longer can prevent him from falling asleep at night. Try to ensure that the teenager avoided nightly homework and did not sit over the lessons all night.
Let the teenager stay away from long viewing of the TV, computer games and other overexciting programs and occupations 2 hours before bedtime. This is the fact about the harm of electronic media in the teen's bedroom. In 2006, the National Survey Fund found that children with four or more electronic gadgets in their bedrooms did not chronically fall asleep. When your teenager goes to bed, make sure that he does not do any other activities, and the whole accent is only on falling asleep. In addition, adolescents should avoid chocolate and caffeinated beverages after 4 pm. This will help them to go to sleep better.
Problems with sleep in adolescents are solved. You only need to get involved in this process, both parents and adolescents themselves.