Senior Flynn Hatch takes a nap in front of his computer in the library. Sleep is one of the most important factors in adolescent development, but can be compromised by technology use. "I'd say school impacts my ability to sleep because I spend so much time in activities outside of school and that leaves no time for homework or family time, and compromises my sleep schedule," Hatch said. Photo by Matteo Winandy
By Elise Laharia
The first period bell rings and students finish, trudging into the class, eyes half-closed and entirely unready to learn.
Sleep deprivation may just be the main issue plaguing today’ adolescents.
AP Psychology teacher Katie Mellus believes that sleep is incredibly vital for teenagers, as the body and brain develop most while asleep.
“It is one of the most important things for growth, for healing, for hormone and neurotransmitter balancing and for memory and cognitive processing,” Mellus said.
Sleep medicine specialist Dr. Sonya Merrill agrees, stressing the importance of sleep, especially for teenagers.
“The body is still growing in adolescence,” she said. “You're still gaining in your height and your muscle mass and the brain is still developing as well. For those reasons, it is an important time to not be deprived of sleep.”
According to Merrill, it is recommended that teenagers sleep at least eight to 10 hours a night. This is more than older children and adults because adolescence is a developmentally vital phase in life and is the transition to adulthood.
“You're facing in your daily life, as a teenager, more challenges than you had and you're starting to have more responsibility,” Merrill said. “Many teenagers have jobs, they drive and school starts to get a lot more demanding. You're preparing yourself for college or for a career and the brain, if deprived of sleep, may result in a lot of trouble with academic performance.”
Merrill defines sleep deprivation in terms of both a quantity and quality of sleep. Lacking in consecutive hours of sleep or having fragmented, unrestful sleep can lead to sleep deprivation. Each night without good sleep contributes to the accumulation of sleep debts or discrepancies in the amount of sleep people are supposed to get and the amount that they actually get. Merrill equates sleep deprivation to draining the bank account for sleep with sleep debts and not being able to make up the deficits.
“The longer that you go without having an adequate quantity and quality of sleep, the more serious the consequences become,” Merrill said. “Poor quality sleep often leads to the same problems in the daytime with not feeling rested when you wake up in the morning, alert throughout the day, able to focus, pay attention and get everything accomplished.”
Senior Sofi Mesinas Garza, however, explains that despite getting around five to six hours of sleep a night, the lack of sleep does not impact her schoolwork..
“I am able to complete all my schoolwork on time and I don’t ever really have latework or missing assignments,” she said. “I really don’t have difficulty waking up early, so if I do have something due, I’m willing to wake up earlier than usual to have it done.”
Merrill explained that the consequences of sleep deprivation aren’t seen as easily in adolescents, but chronic sleep disorders can cause heart disease and brain disorders. Mellus added that a lack of deep sleep and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep especially are linked to problems with memory, cognitive processing and information input and withdrawal.
“If sleep is stunted or isn’t done well, you might feel groggy, your cognitive processing speed might be slower and you almost jet-lag yourself because you aren’t getting enough of the really critical REM cycles at the end of consecutive hours of sleep,” she said.
Both Mellus and Merrill agree that one cause of the sleep problems among adolescents is the delayed circadian rhythm.
“The circadian rhythm is essentially the internal clock in the brain that regulates many of the functions of the body including sleep, hunger [and] the hormones that are released in what we call circadian or pulsatile fashion,” Merrill said. “A lot of the hormones in the body are higher or lower at different times in the 24-hour period.”
Merrill explains that adolescents commonly have a delayed sleep phase circadian disorder or a night owl tendency, which is when a person is unable to easily fall asleep before 1 or 2 a.m. Teenagers who face this problem then have to wake up early in the morning for school, ending up chronically sleep deprived.
“The tendency is very much ingrained and innate to have alertness at night and drowsiness in the morning,” Merrill said. “Forcing somebody who has a delayed sleep phase, that delayed circadian rhythm, to function like the rest of the world can be very, very difficult for them.”
As a student, however, Mesinas Garzas observed that sleep times depend on the individual.
“I know some people who have to go to sleep at 9 p.m. or else they will not be able to function the next day and I have friends that go to bed at 4 a.m. and are perfectly fine to do what they need,” she said.
"Forcing somebody who has a delayed sleep phase, that delayed circadian rhythm, to function like the rest of the world can be very, very difficult for them.”
Merrill mentioned that because of this sleep disorder, there have been nationwide movements to start high schools at a later time, such as 9 or 9:30 a.m.
“There's quite a lot of activism in my professional organizations to lobby school districts to start high school later because of the fact that adolescents do perform better academically when they get more sleep,” Merrill said. “There's actually hard evidence, there [are] studies, looking at this in different school districts across the country [where] the average grades go up, even the sports performance improves when you start school times later for high school.”
Mesinas Garza, however, who has little trouble waking up in the mornings, would rather start school early and get out in the early afternoon than start later and get out in the evening.
“I obviously wish that we could push it to start later, but I understand that it is necessary to start at 8:10 a.m. just so we can get through all eight periods by 3:30 p.m,” she said.
Another factor of chronic sleep deprivation among adolescents is the increased use of technology. According to Merrill, there are two aspects that come into play when discussing the effects of technology on sleep.
The first thing to consider is the blue light that most technologies emit.
“Light is shutting off the very drug that we need to help us be sleepy."
Merrill explains that light exposure is the primary external regulator of sleep and the circadian rhythm. When light hits the retina, a part of the eye, it sends a message to the brain that shuts off melatonin release. Melatonin is the primary substance in the brain that helps people fall asleep.
“Light is shutting off the very drug that we need to help us be sleepy,” Merrill said. “That's where using a tablet or a phone when you're trying to get sleepy at night is actually going right against your own internal sleeping pill.”
Mellus explains that from an evolutionary psychology perspective, a person’s response to light is logical and protective.
“From the standpoint of the old caveman, it was safer to hunt and be awake during the day and it was more dangerous to be doing those things at night,” she said. “Sleeping and getting that rest at night is potentially something that the brain is actually doing for protection.”
Merill says that the other half of the equation with technology is stimulation. The majority of activities on technology, such as playing mobile games, texting friends or watching TV shows are engaging and stimulating people emotionally or intellectually based on the material.
“You're thinking and interacting at a social level, at an intellectual level, and that's keeping your brain stimulated in a way that's not enabling you to really start going into shutdown mode,” Merrill said. “Your brain gets too caught up in a state of alertness and activation. It's keeping you engaged and that's obviously detrimental to sleep.”
Mesinas Garza explained that the primary reason she goes to sleep past midnight is because of technology.
“I think the reason I stay up so late is because I can’t get off my phone,” she said. “I just lose track of time. I don’t even realize that it’s late and then it takes me a while to go to sleep. I sometimes have to take melatonin.”
Merrill provided advice for improving sleep quality and quantity, a category of care she calls “sleep hygiene.”
First, she suggests “setting the stage.” This involves the actual sleep environment. Bedrooms should be dark, cool, quiet and uncluttered. She recommends making the bed in the morning to help with sleep that night.
She explains that beginning about an hour before bedtime, people should be detaching from technology in a dimly lit environment. During this time, she suggests reading, playing board games with family or knitting.
“If you have a really good routine, you’re starting to fall asleep about an hour before you actually fall asleep,” Mellus said. “Your body starts to relax its muscles, it starts to decrease its body temperature so your metabolism changes a little bit. Your pineal gland starts to release things like melatonin and it turns into adenosine being released.”
Mellus also emphasizes the importance of a consistent sleep schedule in order to maintain the circadian rhythm and be able to fall asleep quickly. She acknowledges that while teenagers like to sleep in on the weekends, it is not ideal for their sleep health.
Merrill agrees that poor sleepers that struggle with an abnormal sleep schedule and insomnia should not try to “catch up” on sleep over the weekends because it may make it harder to fall asleep on time when the weekdays roll back around.
However, Merrill believes that for people who struggle only with sleep quantity and not quality, a few additional “catch up” hours on the weekend may help them out.
“Catch-up sleep is probably not a problem if you have a normal circadian rhythm and you're not suffering from insomnia, but if you do have those problems, then I think it's much more important to stay on schedule all the time,” she said. “Ideally, try to have a regular bedtime and wake time and not deviate too much from that.”
Additionally, Merrill addressed that caffeine, in any form including dark chocolate or iced tea, is a stimulant that will make your body more alert. She recommends that caffeine intake stops eight to 10 hours before bedtime.
“In your age group, you're not supposed to be drinking, but alcohol also has a detrimental effect on sleep,” Merrill said.
She also emphasized the importance of physical exercise during the day to help the body to become appropriately tired and to need sleep.
“In our society, many people tend to have very sedentary jobs, people sit in offices all day on a computer and they don't get up and walk around there,” she said. “If we devote some time, every day, to exercising and getting active and tiring our bodies out, that will often help to get the body tired and ready for sleep.”
She suggests going for 30 minute walks in the morning, afternoon or evening but warns against vigorous exercise late at night as it can be too stimulating.
Mellus’ advice is to get as many consecutive hours of sleep as possible.
“What students don’t realize is that if they're taking that nap after school while information is fresh, that would actually be the best time to go through little bits of information and studying,” she said. “Gradually moving the time that you go to sleep further and further up would be really beneficial and doing it consistently even on the weekends.”
Merrill is concerned that as society becomes more technologically advanced and technology becomes more integrated into lives, sleep quality and quantity will deteriorate greatly. The more accessible information is, the more she believes that people will be unwilling to disconnect.
“I think people are aware that it is important to be physically fit and active, and young people are thinking more about that perhaps, but they aren’t thinking of sleep as part of their health and sleep deprivation does affect their health and academic performance,” Merrill said. “I do think it is a topic that needs more attention.”