[Best Tips] how much sleep does a teenager need

how much sleep does a teenager need? sleep is a wonderful thing but why is it  such a necessity for us to sleep to be  able to function properly 

how much sleep does a teenager need

throughout our  lives C is so important. getting enough  quality sleep can help maintain our

• physical health,
• mental health,
• quality of  life and safety.

basically the way you  feel when you're awake depends in part  on what's happening when you're sleeping. your body repairs itself when you're  sleeping. your blood vessels, your muscles and even your heart are undergoing  really important healing and repairing.

sleep also helps you to balance your  hormones

for example the hormone that  makes you feel hungry or full can become  unbalanced. lack of sleep will  increase the amount of hunger hormone  inside you making you feel hungrier throughout the day. sleep also affects  how our body reacts to insulin the  hormone that controls your blood sugar  level not getting enough sleep regularly  can increase our blood sugar levels. therefore can increase your risk of  diabetes. if that wasn't enough to  convince you to get to sleep on time. your immune system also relies on  getting enough sleep.

I'm sure we've all  experienced how not getting enough sleep  can really affect our mental well-being  as well a lack of sleep can really  affect how you function. because when  you're asleep your brain is preparing  you for the next day even just a lot of  one or two hours regularly every night  can reduce your ability to function. so  that your brain acts as if you haven't  slept for about a day or two it's scary.

how much we need to sleep? many other  studies have also shown that sleep helps  with learning whether it's learning to  ride a bike or doing maths learning can  help your problem-solving skills  attention and concentration lack of  sleep may cause you to have trouble  making decisions. controlling your  emotions, behaviors, children, teenagers who aren't getting enough  sleep. also have these troubles they find  it hard to get along with people might  be more irritable have mood swings and  just find it harder to get themselves  motivated to do other things during  adolescence sleep becomes vital because  of the amount of growth and development. that's still going on but what also  changes during adolescence is your  biological clock a biological clock is a  mechanism that is present in all living  things that controls when various  functions such as sleep cycles should  occur.

our biological clock is controlled  by hormones  during adolescence. our sleep hormone  known as melatonin is released later in  the evenings around 11 p.m. this means  for teenagers it can be especially  difficult to get to sleep early like  they used to pre puberty and these  melatonin levels stay higher.

during the  morning which is why teenagers find it's  so difficult to get up sometimes so  biologically teenagers are programmed to  be up and alert later and less awake in  the mornings. but obviously this clashes  with social hours such as school hours. if teenagers are supposed to get  their recommended nine hours and night.  but they're only able to get to sleep at  11 p.m. that means they should be  realistically waking up at 8 a.m. at the  earliest studies have suggested that's a  7 a.m. alarm for teenagers is the  equivalent of a 4:30 a.m. start for a  teacher in their 50s imagine that five  times a week. it's no wonder the sleep  experts are campaigning for school hours  to start later and finish later. if our teenagers went to school at 10  a.m. and finished at 6 p.m. they might  be much better off  attention wise grade wise and just be  generally less stressed out.

but why  teenagers so irritable in the mornings. as well this might be due to the fact  that I'll wake up and tackle life's  challenges hormone is cortisone  also know as our stress hormone is the  hormone that's released when we're  stressed. but it's also released to help  us wake up in the mornings after 20 or  30 minutes of waking up your cortisol  levels can be anywhere between 38 and 75  percent higher than usual this might be  one reason why teenagers are more  grouchy in the mornings. because they're  full of cortisol our stress hormone and  they still have that high level of  melatonin our sleep woman the impact on  early school start can have on a  teenager is often misunderstood by  teachers and parents

it's easy to assume  that the reason teenagers are so sleepy  in the mornings is because they went to  sleep late or they're just really lazy  and don't want to get up for school. it's  also a common belief that if teenagers  went to sleep earlier they'd feel  brighter in the mornings realistically  this isn't really going to happen  because their melatonin levels are so  high. it's really difficult to get to  sleep earlier however there might be  another reason why sleep deprivation is  increasing in our teenagers.

today a  study done in the u.s. found that the  amount of sleep teenagers were getting  has reduced over 20 years and only  around 50  of teenagers were getting more than  seven hours of sleep a night. and this  all could be down to the increasing  amount of Technology in our homes  particularly in the bedroom  over 90% of teenagers use some form of  Technology before bed and studies have  shown that the blue light from our  screens delays the release of our sleep  hormone making it harder for us to go to  sleep on time. although this affects  everyone is especially problematic for  teenagers. because they're already  biologically predisposed to a late  release of sleep woman. it's not just  the blue light that might be hindering  our sleep. it's being online on social  media playing video games or watching TV. that might stop us from going to sleep  on time.

so it's just best to avoid  technology in the bedroom altogether  there's no magic number of hours of  sleep a night that a teenager needs. but  the National Sleep Foundation recommends  that teenagers aged 14 to 17 needs  somewhere in the range of 8 to 10 hours  of sleep a night. but so many teenagers  are not getting this invaluable sleep. this is a real cause for concern  during adolescence. the brain is very  much still developing and in particular  the prefrontal cortex the prefrontal  cortex area is one of the last areas in  the brain to mature. it's responsible for  complex thinking and decision making as  well as our emotion regulation. this  part of the brain is especially  sensitive to sleep deprivation.

so it's  no wonder that the teenagers who aren't  getting enough sleep are having troubles  with mood swings risky behaviour  attention difficulties and problems  controlling their emotions. so how can  you help as a parent you can't force a  teenager to go to sleep. we know that  biologically teenagers aren't gonna be  able to get to sleep around 9:30 p.m.  like they used to try talking to your  teenager about the importance of sleep. whatever they're into you can try and  figure out how you can connect sleep to  be really important to that for example  sports sleep helps your muscles to  repair therefore getting enough sleep. enough quality sleep is going to  make you stronger and fitter and just  better at your sport or maybe they're  into video games. video games needs a lot  of concentration. it's all about  practice really so the more sleep that  you're teenagers getting the better off  their reactions their concentration all  that kind of stuff needed for gaming is  going to be another thing that will  really help is tech for  bedrooms. although this can be difficult  it's really important. This is not just for  teenagers but for everyone as we said  earlier it's the blue light from screen.  that's delaying the release of your  melatonin your sleep hormone by removing  all tech from bedrooms.you remove this  blue light late at night some families  have tried a family charging point so  say for example in the kitchen everyone  puts their phone, tablets, laptops, whatever down to the kitchen overnight  to charge this therefore removes them  from bedrooms.

everyone's involved  however sometimes laptops or phones  might be needed after dinner to finish  up some work or apply to some emails. if  this is the case consider installing  flux on two devices flux makes the light  from your screens warmer and less blue  this therefore makes it less likely that  your sleep hormone will be released  later allowing you to get to sleep on  time.

If you have any questions please make a comment Thanks