The development and changes that the organism undergoes during puberty cause alterations in circadian rhythms and the production of melatonin. Something that, according to different studies, makes it harder for them to fall asleep and get up early.
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Scientists say that, depending on their chronotype, people can be classified as larks (activated in the morning) or owls (prefer afternoons). However, whether you are nocturnal or daytime, you will surely stick to the sheets like a second skin when the alarm clock sounds. To take us out of that pleasant lethargy it takes more than a little noise.
Fortunately, once we have started the day, the bed goes into the background. The lack of sleep in adolescents, caused by the early morning demands of the school, has been the subject of different investigations and debates among members of the scientific community for decades.
According to some of these works, insufficient rest - less than eight hours a day - can have negative effects, both in terms of academic performance and mood. Sleeping little increases the risk that young people suffer from depression or that they consume harmful substances such as tobacco and alcohol.
In fact, a recent work published last month in the journal 'Sleep' and signed by a team of neuroscientists indicates that adolescents are much more productive in class if they enter later. Its authors have reached this conclusion analyzing the changes experienced by students of a Singapore institute that delayed three quarters of an hour the start of the day in 2016.
While some students got to sleep eight hours thanks to the change, others only gained a few minutes of sleep. But, in any case, it was enough: as they assured, they felt better and with more energy.
Things of the age (and the brain)
Experts began to make recommendations on the subject in the 80s, based on the first investigations that investigated the mysterious adolescent brain and its relationship with sleep patterns.
In order to prepare us to sleep, the brain secretes melatonin, a hormone that helps us to fall asleep and remain immersed in it throughout the night. In childhood and adulthood, the production of this natural sleeping habit follows flexible and variable patterns and the hours of greatest activation of each person are determined genetically. However, things change when we talk about adolescents due to the changes their body experiences that affect circadian rhythms - the biological clock that marks the body's physiological processes.
In the young pubescent case, as it also occurs in many other mammals, the release of melatonin begins somewhat later at night than in adults and children and also ends later in the morning. This means that most teenagers find it hard to fall asleep and find it difficult to wake up while the hormone continues to work.
Once they grow and overcome this type of changes, the production of the hormone will return to its normal variability and DNA will once again dominate its time preferences.
However, despite this genetic component, both sleep patterns and rest tends to vary throughout life. While a newborn can spend up to 20 hours sleeping, an adult will have about seven or eight. Babies and the elderly often sleep intermittently, while in other stages we do so in a single night block.
Based on these particularities of the adolescent brain, there are numerous experts and institutions that, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, advise to delay the time of entry to school. A measure that, although without scientific support, would also want some other working adult (and some other child).
Sleep
i wish my mom knew this 20 years ago.zzz
I like to get up early