Contents:
- Medical Video: High School Sleepovers Vs. Child Sleepovers! | MyLifeAsEva
- How much sleep does a teenager need?
- Why do teenagers need more sleep?
- Sleep is important for teenagers
- Cognitive problems
- Behavioral and social problems
- Emotional problem
Medical Video: High School Sleepovers Vs. Child Sleepovers! | MyLifeAsEva
Just like food, sleep is important for health. In fact, sleep is a food for the brain. Because during sleep, many activities carried out by the brain. So, spending sleep or staying up late can be dangerous. If children and adolescents stay up late, it is not impossible that their achievements in school will decline.
Then, how long is it ideal for sleeping for teenagers? Is it the same as adult sleep?
How much sleep does a teenager need?
Every child needs sleep that varies according to his age. Adolescents in junior high school (ages 13-15 years) and high school (aged 16-18 years) also need different sleep times
Adequate sleep time for junior high school students is around 9-11 hours per day. Means that it should not be less than seven hours and more than twelve hours per day.
While high school adolescents need enough sleep time around 8-10 hours per day. This means that it should not be less than seven hours and more than eleven hours in one day.
Teenagers who do not get enough sleep are at risk of obesity, diabetes, injury, poor mental health, and problems with higher concentration and behavior.
Why do teenagers need more sleep?
When compared with adults, teenagers do need more sleep. Generally, adults need to sleep 6-9 hours per day. While teenagers need 9-11 hours per day.
Teenagers need more sleep time to meet the energy needs needed to carry out their activities when they are awake.
Generally, teenagers have an irregular sleep schedule every day. Teenagers tend to sleep late at weekends as a way to recover from debt sleep in previous days.
However, going to bed late will only make their biological clock more chaotic, making it harder to fall asleep during normal sleep hours during the week. So, you could say they are in a circle of bad sleep patterns. During the school day, they must wake up every afternoon and eventually accumulate at the end of the week.
This makes teens tired on weekends and sleeps all the time. If you have entered the beginning of the week again, aka Monday, the teenager will repeat the cycle.
Sleep is important for teenagers
Sleep is very important for the health and function of daily organs. That is just as important as a healthy diet and physical activity. At all stages of life, the brain stays active during sleep, processes memories and emotions, refreshes cells and cleanses waste remnants that can slow or damage brain function.
In adolescence, the brain is still developing, and getting enough sleep is very important for brain development. The part of the prefrontal cortex in the brain is one of the last areas of the brain that experiences development and maturity during adolescence. This part of the brain plays a role in complex thinking and decision making, and emotional regulation. This part of the brain is very sensitive to the effects of sleep deprivation.
Teenagers who have short sleep times have a risk of experiencing intellectual, social, emotional, and behavioral problems. Insufficient sleep in adolescents can have an impact on:
Cognitive problems
- Problems with memory
- Reduced focus and attention
- Difficulty learning
- Difficult to make decisions
- Difficult to solve problems
Behavioral and social problems
- Greater tendency to engage in risky behavior, including smoking and drug use
- Hyperactive
- Aggressive
- Withdraw from the environment
- It's hard to get along with other people
Emotional problem
- Irritability and mood disorders
- Often negative thinking
- Difficult to control emotions
- Increases the risk of depression, anxiety, and thinking of suicide
- Academic problems
