New CDC Study Targets Teens and Sleep

The generally accepted target for sleep quantity for healthy adults is between seven and nine hours of sleep. Hit that on most nights and you’re more likely to feel good, be mentally sharp, and have a better chance of avoiding several serious chronic conditions, but almost half of us have a hard time getting in that amount of sleep. Imagine, then the challenges that teens face. Not only are they supposed to get even more sleep — between nine and ten hours per night — but they are expected to do it while showing up at school as early as 7:00 in the morning and being naturally programmed to not be able to fall asleep until 11:00 or 12:00 at night.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just released the results of a new study of teen sleep, and it reveals that over 90 percent of kids who attend 9th through 12 grade are falling short of that goal. Among high school seniors, who are often working to get into college, that percentage climbs to 95 percent.

The consequences of this lack of adequate sleep goes far deeper than a few yawns in the classroom. Multiple research studies have shown that young people who don’t get the sleep that they need have a much higher propensity for obesity, for being diagnosed with diabetes, and for overall poor performance in school. Beyond that, this is the age group in which most drivers first get their driver’s license, and that means you have millions of newly minted, inexperienced drivers behind the wheels of heavy vehicles and sleep deprived. Statistically speaking, this means that they are 21 percent more likely to get into an accident. If they’re sleeping less than six hours a night, that number climbs to a greater likelihood of 55 percent. If you keep in mind that drowsy driving has been named a contributor to about 7,500 crashes per year — accounting for about a quarter of all accidents — then you understand why the CDC numbers are such cause for concern.

According to Charles Basch, sleep researcher at Columbia University in New York, “Sleep is essential for the health of the human brain.” Writing in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease, he says. “The data shows a need for universal interventions — those directed toward all students. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics has encouraged school districts to establish start times that optimize students’ sleep. Unfortunately, intervention research directed toward high school populations has received little attention.” Basch goes on to say, “I don’t believe there’s one culprit. For some children it’s too much homework, for some it’s health problems like asthma. For others it may be anxiety or depression, or the prescription medications they are taking for such conditions. Recreational drugs can be a factor, as can having electronics in the bedroom.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just released the results of a new study of teen sleep, and it reveals that over 90 percent of kids who attend 9th through 12 grade are falling short of that goal

Basch and his colleagues have devoted tremendous time and resources to studying teens. Over the last several years they interviewed teens, asking about how much sleep they got, and found that only 6 to 7 percent of girls and 8 to 9 percent of boys estimated getting nine or more hours of sleep per night. The American Academy of Pediatrics has indicated that getting enough sleep each night is so critical for those who are in middle and high school that they want schools to delay their start times to 8:30 in the morning or later. Another research project done at Columbia found that a much higher number of sixteen-year olds, a full twenty percent, were getting fewer than six hours of sleep per night, and that put them at a 20 percent greater risk of obesity by the time they reach the age of 21 when compared to teens who were regularly getting eight or more hours of sleep. According to Dr. Basch, This type of data has only been collected since 2007, so we can’t say whether the situation has been getting worse historically. But what we can clearly say is that a very substantial portion of high school students throughout America is not getting enough sleep.”

The data was collected from between 12,000 and 15,000 American teens, and in addition to finding that the problem became greater as they got older and that girls tended to have greater sleep shortages than boys, they also found that race played a factor in sleep deprivation. Black teens are much more likely to fall below five hours of sleep per night than white teens are, with up to 20 percent getting that little sleep. Among Hispanics, the numbers are approximately 15 percent of girls and 12 percent of boys getting five hours or less per night.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, teenagers are naturally programmed to have a hard time falling asleep as early as adults and children do. Because of this, they need to be able to sleep later in the morning in order to get the right amount of sleep. Basch says, “More and more attention is being focused on the start times of schools, with the idea being that very early class schedules do not serve good sleep patterns.” Kelly Baron, assistant professor of neurology and director of the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Program in the department of neurology with the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, “While we’re still trying to understand why this is happening, one of the reasons is clearly school start times. Having children wake up to start school at 6 or 7 a.m. is really at odds with their biology.”

They also acknowledge that there are certain steps that can be taken to help them fall asleep earlier, including cutting back on the use of technology for a few hours before bedtime and establishing regular sleep routines that will create physiological habits.