Top 5 Reasons Why Teenagers Need More Sleep – Amiya Crockrom

If you are a parent of a teenager you may notice that your child sleeps a lot. You may question “Are they really tired or are they just being lazy”? Teenagers often find themselves always tired and never getting enough sleep. Biological sleep patterns shift toward later times for both sleeping and walking during adolescence which means it’s natural to not be able to fall asleep before 11:00pm.The National Sleep Foundation recommends that teens get 8-10 hours of sleep nightly. Most teens do not get this much sleep. Find out why it is good that teenagers get a little extra sleep and the benefits of getting sleep.

Sleep is food for the brain

While teenagers are sleeping important body functions and brain activity occur. Sleep is vital to your well-being. It helps you eat better. But for teens especially, it’s the body’s time to repair the damage of the day, regulate hormones, consolidate memory, solidify learning.

Bad Mood

Sleep deprivation will cause your teenager to be moody, irritable, and cranky. You are frustrated or upset more easily. Teenagers who are sleep deprived are also more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviors, such as drinking, driving fast, and engaging in other dangerous activities. Inadequate sleep will result in problems with attention, memory, decision making, reaction time, and creativity, all of which are important in school.

Physical Consequences

A problem that can result from a lack of sleep is impaired athletic performance. According to research presented at the Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in 2008, increasing the amount of sleep received each night has been shown to significantly improve athletes’ abilities to perform. Because so many teenagers compete in sports, those who wish to perform their best should ensure they get adequate sleep. Teens may also experience clumsiness and slower physical reflexes, which could have a negative effect on driving safety. restore energy so they can wake up and do it all over again the next day.

Helps Teen Stress Level

Getting enough sleep helps manage stress. Lack of sleep increases levels of adrenaline and cortisol, making us feel weird, edgy and stressed. That physical stress combines with the psychological stress of homework, social stress, over scheduled extracurricular activities, pressure to perform, and looming responsibilities of adulthood that can feel overwhelming. Stress hormones make it harder to fall asleep, creating a cycle of sleep debt that is hard to break out of.

Enough Sleep can Help take off extra pounds

Teens who sleep less than 8 hours each night and don’t make up the sleep are at a higher risk of becoming obese. It’s important to try to get right amount of rest on a regular basis, but sleeping longer on the weekends and holidays to fight off unhealthy extra pounds is what’s best.One reason that sleep is so important is that it has a profound effect on body fat regulation. During sleep, important appetite-regulating hormones such as leptin are produced, and these hormones can become deficient when sleep is inadequate. Consequently, this causes people who do not get enough sleep at night to overeat and thus gain fat.

So, getting a few hours of extra sleep can help teenegrs reduce stress level, loose a little weight, help give to the brain, reduce bad moods and help with  physical ability. So parents letting your teen get some extra sleep is okay and perfectly fine.