Many teens don't get enough sleep, usually because they're busy and tend to skimp on sleep. But sleeping issues can keep some teens awake at night even when they want to sleep. Over time, those nights of missed sleep (whether they're caused by a sleep disorder or simply not scheduling enough time for the necessary ZZZs) can build into a sleep deficit. People with a sleep deficit are unable to concentrate, study, and work effectively. They can also have emotional problems, like depression.
What happens when a person is asleep?
You don't notice it, of course, but while you're asleep, your brain is still active. As people sleep, their brains pass through five stages of sleep. Together, stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and REM (rapid eye movement) sleep make up a sleep cycle. One complete sleep cycle lasts about 90 to 100 minutes. So during an average night's sleep, a person will experience about four or five cycles of sleep.
Stages 1 and 2 are periods of light sleep from which a person can wake up easily. During these stages, eye movements slow down and eventually stop, heart and breathing rates slow down, and body temperature decreases. Stages 3 and 4 are deep sleep stages. It's more difficult to awaken someone during these stages, and when awakened, a person will often feel groggy and confused for a few minutes. Stages 3 and 4 are the most refreshing of the sleep stages — it is this type of sleep that we crave when we are very tired.
The final stage of the sleep cycle is known as REM sleep because of the rapid eye movements that occur during this stage. During REM sleep, other physical changes take place — breathing becomes rapid, the heart beats faster, and the limb muscles don't move. This is the stage of sleep when a person has the most vivid dreams.
Why do teens face problems sleeping?
Research shows that teens need at least 8½ hours of sleep a night. You don't need to be a math whiz to figure out that if you wake up for school at 6:00 a.m., you'd have to go to bed at 9:00 p.m. to reach the 9-hour mark. Studies have found that many teens have trouble falling asleep that early, though. It's not because they don't want to sleep. It's because their brains naturally work on later schedules and aren't ready for bed.
During adolescence, the body's circadian rhythm (sort of like an internal biological clock) is reset, telling a teen to fall asleep later at night and wake up later in the morning. This change in the circadian rhythm seems to happen because a teen's brain makes the hormone melatonin later at night than the brains of kids and adults do. (Melatonin and another hormone, serotonin, help regulate a person's sleep–wake cycles.)
So, teens have a harder time falling asleep. Sometimes this delay in the sleep–wake cycle is so severe that it affects a person's daily activities. In those cases it's called delayed sleep phase syndrome or "night owl" syndrome. But all sorts of things can lead to insomnia, including physical discomfort (the stuffy nose of a cold or the pain of a headache, for example), emotional troubles (like family problems or relationship difficulties), and even an uncomfortable sleeping.
Mentioned above were sleeping issues in teens that should hamper your kids growth. So watch out and take care of their sleeping patterns.