Sleep Deficiency & Mental Health

By Karan Narula

Sleep can be most simply defined as a state of recurring temporary paralysis in which the function of the nervous system is suspended, lack of sensory feelings and postural muscles relaxed almost completely. For humans, and most other animals, it takes place for several hours every night and gives time for the body to repair its cells and tissues, but that is a very sciency definition.

Sleep is recognized by almost all teenagers as being the single best time of one’s day, however its important for us to address certain contradictions. Why is it that even though sleep is universally loved among adolescents, we don’t seem to get enough of it every night?

The reasons for the lack of sleep are many. In more sciency terms, it has been found that the circadian rhythm of teenagers shifts 2 hours forward on the onset of puberty, a relatively less known fact. This leads to the formation of a vicious cycle because of the early school start time. In Singapore, for example, the average school start time is somewhere around 8 in the morning. With a 2 hour shift forward in the bedtime, most adolescents don’t get the recommended 8 to 10 hours of sleep. Infact, in a study conducted in the United states showed that only around 15% of students said that they got around 8 hours of sleep. Most high school students are constantly getting low amount of sleep during the week and usually end up catching up on sleep during the weekend. Another important thing to consider when discussing the question of sleep deprivation is the very real and genetically driven FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Society always prefers the social being. He will always have the highest chance of survival and it is a genetic drive, not an addiction. This is a contribution to the decrease in sleep amongst teenagers.

One important consideration to make right now is the kind of effect lack of sleep has on the mental health of people our age. A simple google search will tell you the drastic increase in reported mental illness/disorders/distress amongst people aged between 13 and 18. Most researchers attribute it firstly to an increase in usage of social media, but a close second, comes because of declining sleep times.

Some studies indicate worrisome results. In a study conducted amongst school students, lack of sleep was reported to have a 38% risk in feelings of sadness or hopelessness and a 58% increase in suicide attempts. Further studies have indicated that a rise in depression and anxiety among younger populations is directly related to the decrease in number of hours slept. Further, lack of sleep impairs the human minds ability to function. Other than decreased concentration and lack of interest in activities, lack of sleep causes impacts to the prefrontal cortex. Amongst teenagers, the prefrontal cortex is already undeveloped, and a lack of sleep makes matters worse. Lack of sleep makes teenagers more susceptible to addictions to narcotic substances.

So, what should be done? Honestly, parents will keep blaming the phone for every problem that happens in a teenager’s life, and while they are wrong in many cases, this time (unfortunaetly) they’re not wrong. We as teenagers need to collectively establish a time amongst our friend groups of not texting after a certain time so that the temptation to check our social media decreases. This ensures that even if we do sleep late, we will sleep deeper as the reduced device usage will increase the quality of sleep we get. Further, we should try and encourage/ force our parents to let us sleep in on the weekends, no matter how much work we have. This ensures that we can catch up on lost sleep in the weekend and make sure that we atleast start our week with a bunch of energy.

There are a lot else we could ask for like a delay in school start times, decreased number of hours spent for homework, and many more, but they are quite impractical and hard to achieve at the moment, maybe a petition for that will help? For now, we should all try and take these small steps to ensure we get a higher quality and quantities of sleep.