Teen Sleep

A Teen Sleep research project hopes to determine how much sleep teenagers need and anmd the effects of mobile phones.

16:48 15 March 2016

A Teen Sleep research project at the University of Oxford hopes to determine how much sleep do teenagers need, if they are being kept awake by mobile phones and if they need more education about the risks of sleep deprivation.

 

Over the course of 2017, a series of experiments and tests will be conducted with the help of teenagers from 100 schools across the United Kingdom.

 

However, Oxford researchers’ 10-week pilot scheme has already started and they have begun monitoring the sleep of students from Northumberland Church of England Academy. As part of the trials, Year 10 and 11 students at the school will attend a sleep education programme and complete a sleep diary before and after receiving the sleep education programme. The sleep pattern of a sub-group of 20 Year 10 pupils will be monitored using wrist devices.

 

Talking to study’s participants, Professor Russell Foster from Oxford said: "I mean 36% of our entire biology is sleep biology and yet you guys, and all other teenagers, get no advice about how important sleep is, how you can take control of your sleep, why you need to take sleep seriously and what are the impacts if you don't have enough sleep."

 

He warned that not getting enough sleep has both short-term and long-term effects.

 

"The first thing is that the brain's ability to process information begins to fall apart pretty quickly with lack of sleep and also your emotional responses, your empathy towards other people also begins to decline and your tendency to do stupid and unreflective things goes up with lack of sleep.

 

"Longer term sleep disruption can lead to the suppression of the immune system, higher levels of infection and really long term sleep disruption [...] can lead to some forms of cancer, coronary heart disease and metabolic abnormalities such as diabetes."