Navigating at bedtime with a teenager is, in many houses, a night battle with a constant chorus: salt from your phone! Lie down!
Research shows that today’s teenagers are more deprived of sleep than ever. Teenagers need between eight and 10 hours of sleep, according to centers for disease control and prevention. But almost 80% of American adolescents do not get it, and experts say they are affecting important areas such as mental health and school attendance.
The routines of the bedtime are not just for young children. Teenagers also need them, says Denise Pope, an expert in child development and head professor of the Graduate Education School of Stanford University.
Adolescent sleep experts say some small changes in how parents and adolescents approach the dream can make a dramatic difference.
The first step to establish a better routine to sleep is to deal with technology.
– Children separated from their devices at night. Telephones, tablets, transmission services and video games are not the only things that keep children awake at night, but experts agree that they are an important factor to delay sleep.
“Take out the temptation from the bedroom,” says Pope. If the phone is available to the arm, it is difficult to ignore when notifications buzz. Many teenagers say they fall asleep while traveling, or look for their phone if they have trouble sleeping and end up moving for hours.
– Prepare for excuses. “My phone is my alarm clock” is something that many parents listen. The solution: Buy a alarm clock.
– Place your screens an hour before bedtime. Exposure to light prevents the release of melatonin, the hormone released by the brain that makes us feel sleepy.
Then, replace the screens with a new liquidation routine.
– Try to bed almost at the same time every night and start liquidating at least 30 minutes before. During that time, notifications of silence, take a warm shower, read a book. To have an idea what the time to sleep from your teenager should be, try online ” calculator at bedtime“Like that of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
– Avoid caffeine and energy drinks in the afternoon and night.
– The best sleep environment is a fresh, dark and quiet room. In noisy homes, the caps for the ears and a sleeping mask can help. If a bedroom is too warm, it can affect sleeping and falling asleep, says adolescent sleep expert Kyla Wahlstrom.
Part of the revealing evidence of sleep deprivation: to be irritable, grumpy, of bad temper, emotionally fragile, demotivated, impulsive and more likely to see the world and oneself through a negative lens. A sleeping teenager can also fall asleep during the day, in the car or in class.
“We often blame adolescents for being lazy or rebellious or having a bad behavior, much of which could be attributed to the fact that they are chronically deprived of sleep,” says Wendy Troxel, a clinical psychologist who has conducted numerous studies on the dream of adolescents.
How does the difference between a sleepy teenager and one of a grumpy but with the relay?
-A key signal is what the sleep expert Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse calls “Zombie mornings.”
“If your teenager hits five times, it takes an eternity to get out of bed, ask for a large cup of coffee early in the morning, most likely they are empty,” says Fong-Isariyawongse, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh.
– The extreme changes of humor are another sign. The dream is critical for emotional processing, so that adolescents deprived of sleep are more likely to be irritable, anxious or depressed.
-A adolescent deprived of sleep can be left behind at school, because sleep is essential for learning and consolidation of memory.
– The teenagers who sleep less are It is more likely to make bad decisions When it comes to drug or alcohol consumption, sleepy or reckless conduction and risky sexual behavior.
– Do you sleep your adolescence until lunch time on weekends? “Most likely, they don’t sleep enough during the week,” says Fong-Isariyawongse. It’s okay to sleep a little, but try to limit it to a couple of hours. Otherwise, it throws the body’s clock and makes it harder to wake up when the new school week begins.
Explain to your adolescence why the dream is important, and that it is not just the annoying parents who say it. Mental health and sleep data are vast.
– Many studies show that depression, anxiety and risk of suicidal thought Go up while sleeping falls.
– Beyond mood, sleep deprivation affects physical and athletic capacity. That is why several NFL and the NBA teams have hired sleep coaches. Teenagers who are deprived of sleep hold more physical injuriesBecause they take more risks, their judgment is affected and the reflexes and reaction times are not so fast. Teenagers who sleep more work better in sports, and when they receive injuries, they have a faster recovery time.
– Studies show that more accidents for adolescent cars come from sleepy driving than to drive under the influence of alcohol. Teenagers who say they sleep less than eight hours per night are more likely to Text message while driving, do not use the seat beltDrink and drive, or get into a car with a driver who has been drinking.
As any father knows, telling his teenager to go to sleep does not always work. You need to obtain your acceptance.
“Children need to be educated about sleep and their health and emotional health, and how everything joins,” says Wahlstrom. “Tell your children: ‘You will do better at school, better in sports, you’ll look better after a good night’s night.’ Because until they want to help themselves, they won’t.”
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