Newsletter｜睡眠时间将如何影响青少年的未来发展？

The teenage years are a formative period. The brain and body experience significant development, and the transition to adulthood brings important changes that affect emotions, personality, social and family life, and academics.

Sleep is essential during this time, working behind the scenes to allow teens to be at their best. Unfortunately, research indicates that many teens get far less sleep than they need.

New research in American Psychological Association shows that young children in Asian countries sleep less on average than children who live in the United States, Canada and New Zealand.

The study of parents of 28,287 children in 17 countries found vast cultural differences in bedtimes, total sleep and parents' perceptions of sleep problems among their children. Overall, children from Asian countries had the latest bedtimes—with children in Hong Kong bedding down as late as 10:30 pm—and the shortest total sleep times.

Parents in Asian countries tuck children in around 9:30 pm on average, while 8:30 pm is the U.S. average, and children in New Zealand go to sleep at 7:30 pm. This research also found that 52 percent of the Asian respondents said they believed their children have a sleep problem compared with 26 percent of parents from the predominantly Caucasian countries.

This finding is important because meeting recommendations for multiple health behaviours is likely linked to better health outcomes than meeting recommendations for any individual health behaviour.  

The odd bad night's sleep can make you feel tired and irritable the next day, but it won't harm your health. However, regular poor-quality sleep can have a huge effect on your health, putting you at risk of developing serious medical conditions and can affect your body, thoughts, emotions and behaviour.

Not sleeping well can have a huge effect on your health, putting you at risk of serious medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. It can even shorten your life expectancy.

Sleep and mood affect each other. Not getting enough sleep can take its toll on your mind and can even lead to mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. People who don't get enough sleep might find they feel depressed, and people who are depressed may find they don't sleep well enough.

Sleeping less can make you gain weight. Studies have shown that people who sleep less than 7 hours a day are 30% more likely to be obese than those who sleep for 9 hours or more. This is believed to be because sleep-deprived people have lower levels of leptin (the chemical that makes you feel full) and more ghrelin (the hunger-stimulating hormone).

There were several studies that scientists did in the early 2000s that looked at the effects of sleep deprivation.What the researchers concluded is that sleep has links to several brain functions, including:

• concentration

• productivity

• cognition

  
  

A more recent study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry Trusted Source showed that children’s sleep patterns can have a direct impact on their behavior and academic performance.

One risk factor for heart disease is high blood pressure. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)Trusted Source, getting adequate rest each night allows the body’s blood pressure to regulate itself. Doing so can reduce the chances of sleep-related conditions such as apnea and promote better overall heart health.

Sleep has links to people’s emotional and social intelligence. Someone who does not get adequate sleep is more likely to have issues with recognizing other people’s emotions and expressions. For example, one study in the Journal of Sleep Research Trusted Source looked at people’s responses to emotional stimuli. The researchers concluded, similarly to many earlier studies, that a person’s emotional empathy is less when they do not get adequate sleep.

The association between sleep and mental health has been the subject of research for a long time. One conclusion is that there is a link between lack of sleep and depression. A study appearing in JAMA Psychiatry Trusted Source examines patterns of death by suicide over 10 years. It concludes that lack of sleep is a contributing factor to many of these deaths. Another study in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry Trusted Source suggests that people with sleep disorders such as insomnia are likely to show signs of depression.