Did you know teens need a bit over nine hours of sleep every night, but the majority of them are not getting even close to that on school nights? It turns out that this is way worse for their health than we thought. A new study published in the journal SLEEP has found that teens who don't get enough shut-eye are at a higher risk of developing diabetes since inadequate sleep effects a teen's insulin resistance.
But how do you get your teen get more sleep when they have to be up and ready to go to school before the sun is up? I know that's an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like that for me growing up.
I've never been a morning person, so I never understood why high school had to start at such an ungodly hour as 7:15 a.m. My brain has never really functioned all that well at that time and, as a night owl, I've always done so much better later on at night.
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Unfortunately, as a teen, there was not much I could do in terms of my school's start time, but I always wondered what would happened if my days had started at least a couple of hours later. I'm willing to bet that I would've been a lot more productive. And I think the same can be said for a lot of teenagers out there. In fact, there's tons of evidence out there that suggests this much is true.
I know that those who have no problems waking up early say that it's the best way to take advantage of a full day ahead of you have a point, but that's really impossible to do if you don't get to bed until after midnight. Unfortunately, though, school administrators don't seem to care much about this and would rather have sleep deprived students walking through their doors at 7 a.m. than well rested ones at 9 a.m.
I can't wait to see what it'll be like for my kids when they become teenagers… not! I can already envision the battles that will be ensued!
Image via chiesADIbeinasco/flickr
