How to Help Your Teen Get More Sleep
When it comes to teens getting enough sleep, many forces are at work against them. Beginning early in school wreaks havoc on their circadian rhythms. The excess of extracurricular activities makes bedtime a time to start doing your homework. The noise of messages from friends, the glowing screens in front of them, and the constant lure of yet another game or episode of Riverdale make their brains work at night. And all the lectures coming from the anxious mums and dads seem to dissolve in thin air because … well, adolescence. And so they struggle to get through their days, moody and rebellious, struggling to answer simple questions. As parents, you wonder if there is anything you can do to help.
It is possible and necessary.
Teenagers need sleep – more than they think. According to the latest guidelines from the National Sleep Foundation, children between the ages of 6 and 13 should exercise between 9 and 11 hours. Teenagers between 14 and 17 years old need eight to ten hours. And young people between 18 and 25 should strive for seven to nine hours. Yet very few people understand this. According to a study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, only about 8 percent of American teens sleep at the optimal time – nine and a quarter hours.
This means that others do not get enough sleep – many are very serious. One study found that 59% of teens sleep less than six hours on school evenings. The effect of this goes beyond naps in fifth period trigonometry. Lack of sleep can impair their judgment (while they are already attuned to risky behaviors ), cause anxiety and mood disorders , affect their learning ability , increase their risk of obesity as adults, increase their likelihood of getting sick and lead to car accidents . It can also make them more prone to acne breakouts.
Parents will probably need more than a gentle “Hey honey, it’s too late” to rid their teenager of his ingrained habits. Here’s what you can do instead.
Show them why they need sleep, strategically and respectfully.
Many of us could sleep more and better — adults tend to admit this. When you hit 30 or so, you know that sleep is great! One of the greatest pleasures of life! However, many adolescents believe that they function perfectly if they sleep very little, or if they are tired, they may just “catch up” on the weekends, which is not the case . And when they have a strong opinion about something, and their parents try to convince them otherwise, this can lead to a power struggle.
“Many children resist changing their sleep patterns because they don’t want to hear ‘I told you so’ from their parents,” Dr. William Strixrud and Ned Johnson write in their book The Self-Propelled Child . “It is important to approach the subject in such a way as to confirm your knowledge of yourself. You might say something like, “You may be right. You may be one of those kids who need less sleep than most people. Let’s see if this is so. I want to support you in making the right decisions. “
Also be aware that it is difficult for teens to go to bed at what you think is reasonable. Ellen Wermter, a nurse practitioner in the Charlottesville Department of Neuroscience and Sleep Medicine, tells me: “Teens are already prone to delayed sleep patterns, which means that as they get into adolescence, it becomes more difficult for them to go to bed earlier in the night. clock. They just don’t want to sleep. ” Approaching an issue in terms of empathy and understanding, rather than threats, can go a long way.
Strixrud and Johnson note that adolescents often respond best when advice comes from a non-parental third party. Maybe you have a trusted pediatrician or counselor who can share his thoughts. You cannot get your child to sleep, but you can talk about sleep and find out what is preventing him from sleeping, and then make a plan together.
Change your family’s routine
Pretty much every sleep expert I spoke to stressed one word when it comes to helping teens get enough sleep: daily routine. “You cannot and should not strive to be in control of everything, but to selectively influence what you are capable of,” says Dr. Mark Bertin, a developmental pediatrician who has written the forthcoming book How Children Thrive: The Practical Science of Nurturing Self-Reliance. “. Resilient, happy children . “ Encourage a lifestyle that allows you to spend time with your family, relax, exercise and sleep. Routines such as regular family meals and technology-related rules have been shown to benefit teens in both behavior and school. ”
In the morning, expose the teens to the light outside – open the windows, invite them to walk the dog, and perhaps encourage them to go to school. And do the same on weekends. Wermter tells me that sleeping on Saturday and Sunday can trigger “social jet lag” – Monday through Wednesday they are more likely to find themselves lethargic and unmotivated.
Then try having dinner while it’s light in the evening , but if your kids need a snack afterwards, make sure it doesn’t upset their stomachs or ruin their sleep. Encourage them to put together a homework schedule in which they do everything on the screen first. After that, you can do all non-screen projects. Because blue light from devices has a big impact on melatonin levels, Wermter says all screens should be removed one or two hours before bed. It’s also important to take a critical look at your teen’s schedule. If drama club juggling, volleyball training, training team, and SAT training sessions tire your child out and make him cry, you need to help him prioritize and possibly do some tough contractions.
Set up the right environment with the right tools
A good sleep requires the right environment, and that often means a need for reinforcement. Here are some that can really be worth the investment:
- Family Device Charging Dock : Give all your family’s devices – laptops, phones, iPads – time to sleep and a place to sleep and recharge. The dock should be located outside the bedrooms.
- Alarm clock without phone: Alarm clocks with wake-up lights that simulate sunrise are favorites of Lifehacker.
- Blue light filter for your screens: If your child needs to do homework on the screen at night, he needs a filter. f.lux is a free download that adjusts your computer display for the time of day, making colors warm at night so your eyes can rest.
- Blue-blocking glasses: Let your teen wear them every night when using the screens. Wermther loves the Swanwick Sleep goggles.
- Weighted Blanket: If your teenager has anxiety running through the night, a weighted blanket may be helpful.
- Cooling bedding and a fan to cool the room : Hormones from teenagers can heat up their bodies more than adults.
- Smart Lighting: You can make Alex gradually dim the lights at a set time, letting everyone know it’s time to start turning off.
Lobby for later start of school
This is perhaps the most important task of all. While parents can and should help their teens establish better daily routines, optimize their environments, and celebrate rooftop sleep, the fact is that most school schedules are out of sync with the biology of adolescents . A study just published by researchers at the National Children’s Health System found that by shifting the start time of high school to 8 a.m. instead of 7:20 a.m., seventh and eighth graders were able to get an average of 17 minutes more sleep each night. weekdays. which may not seem so big, but is actually huge. The children reported feeling less tired and more alert during class. To help lobby for late school start times, you can join your local Start School Later chapter and speak at school board meetings.
The later start of school is, of course, controversial – parents need to go to work, and the shift can interfere with extracurricular activities. However, sleep deprivation in adolescence comes with real health risks. This is something that we simply cannot sleep on.