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Sleep Tips for Teens

Sleep Tips for Teens

While most parents know that teens need 8-10 hours of sleep to grow a healthy brain and body, learn and meet their potential, many have no idea their teen has a problem sleeping. These sleep tips for teens can help parents talk to their teens about their sleep and ensure they get the best quality sleep they can.

Teens can have problems sleeping due to a number of reasons:

  • Delayed Sleep Schedules: After puberty, a teenager’s internal clock shifts by about 2 hours, meaning teenagers will naturally not be able to sleep until later in the night and wake up later in the morning.
  • Social, Work and School commitments: Teenagers try to do it all see them working night shifts, completing homework or socialising late into the night and disrupting their sleep schedule.
  • Sleep isn’t a priority: Invincible teens don’t think they need sleep prioritising their social life, gaming or work over shut-eye.

As a result, at least 50% of teenagers are very sleep deprived.

Sleep deprivation will impact many aspects of a teenager’s functioning:

  • Behaviour: Teenagers who are sleep deprived are more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviours, such as drinking, drug-taking, smoking, driving fast or sexual activity.
  • Cognitive ability: Lack of sleep results in problems with attention, memory, decision making, reaction time, and creativity impacting performance. Studies show that teenagers who get less sleep have worse school results, fall asleep in school, and have more school absences.
  • Mood: Sleep deprivation leads to a moody, irritable, and cranky teen who has difficulty regulating their emotions. E.g. getting frustrated, angry or upset more which may lead to problems with family, friends and relationships. (Sound familiar?)
  • Mental Health Problems: Tired teens lack resiliency and are more susceptible to mental health illnesses such as depression.
  • Poor Diet: Lack of sleep can lead to overeating, eating more unhealthy foods and relying on high calorie, caffeinated energy drinks resulting in fatigue, poor skin, immune health, and inability to maintain a healthy weight.

Sleep Tips for Teens:

  • Maintain a regular sleep schedule: Your teenager should go to bed and wake up at about the same time each day, allowing them the 10 hours they need. This includes weekends. Sleep deprivation is not a debt you can repay. Sleeping in until lunchtime at the weekend will make it harder for teens to get up on Mondays.
  • Avoid caffeine, smoking, alcohol, and drugs. All of these disrupt sleep. If your teen does drink caffeinated drinks, ask them to avoid these beverages after 2 pm.
  • De-Screen before bed: Switching off from all devices at least an hour before bed helps ensure the backlight technology doesn’t delay sleep. Remove devices from teens’ bedrooms so they aren’t tempted to use these at night. Social media will be there tomorrow!
  • Wind-down routine: Help your teen create a relaxing wind-down routine they will enjoy doing and feel the benefits each night. E.g. Get ready for the next day, have a hot bath/shower, brush teen, listen to music/read and then get into bed.

At SleepDrops we know all teenagers will benefit from additional nutrients to support them to sleep better, feel less stressed, build resiliency and cope with the pressure of teen life. With this in mind, we have specifically formulated TeenSleep & Stress for Pre-teens and Teens aged 9-19 years of age.

“My son found TeenSleep helpful to settle him down for the night. His bad habits of staying up too late were taking a toll on him. With exams approaching he was in need these and they have made a huge difference for him” – Julie

To get $10 off and learn more about how this amazing product can support your teen to sleep better and stress less so they can live their ultimate teen life shop here: SleepDrops TeenSleep & Stress – SleepDrops International

Source: The SleepDrops Research Team