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| Sleepy teens more likely to suffer depression |
| Health |
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Making sure teenage children get enough sleep may be one of the best ways to keep them from suffering depression, according to a study reported in London’s Daily Telegraph. “Our results are consistent with the theory that inadequate sleep is a risk factor for depression,” said lead author Dr. James Gangwisch, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York. “Adequate quality sleep could therefore be a preventive measure against depression and a treatment for depression.” The study recommends that adolescents go to bed by 10 p.m. in order to get the recommended nine or more hours of sleep they need. By contrast, an analysis of the normal sleep patterns of the 15,659 teens studied between 1994 and 1996 found that their average sleep time was less than eight hours. The data was collected through in-home interviews with the teenagers and their parents. Teens who said they usually slept five hours or less were found to be 71 per cent more likely to suffer from depression, and 48 per cent more likely to think about committing suicide than those who reported getting at least eight hours of sleep each night. In addition, teens whose parents let them stay up until midnight or later were found to be 24 per cent more likely to suffer from depression, and 20 per cent more likely to have suicidal thoughts compared to teens with set bedtimes of 10 p.m. or earlier. Gangwisch said parents who enforce a 10 p.m. bedtime for their teenage children find they most often do as they are told. In fact, the study showed that two-thirds of the teens surveyed said they went to bed at or even before curfew. “There was only a five-minute average difference between what time adolescents said they went to bed, and what time their parents said they should go to bed,” he told Canwest News Service. The study is reported in the January issue of the scientific journal, Sleep. |
