Dr. Mercola August 30 2007 25,452 views
Electronic gadgets have overtaken many teenagers’ bedrooms, damaging their health due to lack of sleep, according to a British survey.
The Sleep Council warns that “junk sleep” could rival the unhealthy junk food craze as a major lifestyle issue for parents of teenage children.
Their poll of 1,000 teenagers between the ages of 12 to 16 revealed that 30 percent got only four to seven hours of sleep. And almost 25 percent said they fell asleep while watching TV, listening to music, or perusing some other electronic gadget.
About 40 percent said they felt tired each day, and some 20 percent of the boys admitted their quality of sleep was affected by leaving their TV or computer on. However, only 11 percent said they were bothered by the lack of quantity, or quality, of sleep.
Dr. Chris Idzikowski with the Edinburgh Sleep Centre stated, “What we are seeing is the emergence of Junk Sleep – that is sleep that is of neither the length nor quality that it should be in order to feed the brain with the rest it needs to perform properly at school.”
The Sleep Council Press Release
The Sleep Council Teenage Sleep: Facts, Figures & Tips
Scientific American August 28, 2007
Sleep is sorely underrated when it comes to health – it’s no wonder most teenagers don’t consider it a problem.
How Can You Help Your Child Get the Sleep They Need?
Talking to your children about the benefits of proper sleep may help, however you may need to take the reins and limit the amount of electronic distractions you allow your child to have in their bedroom.
The Facts, Figures & Tips sheet provided by the Sleep Council (see link above) is a good place to start when talking to your young ones. They’ve done a good job of pointing out the benefits that teenagers in particular are more likely to respond to, such as:
Turning off the TV at a set time, or removing the TV from your child’s bedroom, should be first on your list if you want to ensure a good night’s sleep.
I also suggest reading my Guide to a Good Night's Sleep for simple tips on improving your sleep and that of your children. Whether you are not able to fall asleep, wake up too often, or don't feel well rested when you wake up in the morning, my guidelines will provide you with various useful techniques to improve these problems. Some of my recommendations include:
Exercise also has the ability to help you release underlying anxieties that might impair your sleep. According to the Sleep Council’s press release, worry affects the sleeping patterns of 57 percent of all teenagers, and increases with age. A whopping 79 percent of the 15- to 16-year-old girls said worry affected their quality of sleep.
How Electro Magnetic Fields Affect Your Sleep
But many teens also have a multitude of other electronic gadgets in their rooms, aside from TV’s (and this trend is certainly not limited to Great Britain.)
This trend exposes them to an inordinate amount of electric field radiation. A previous study funded by the Electric Power Research Institute found that even relatively small changes in EMFs have an observable impact on lowering melatonin levels, which can lead to disturbed sleep and insomnia.
Melatonin is a hormone that helps your body regulate its daily (or "circadian") rhythms and the sleep-wake cycle. According to that study, a doubling of nighttime magnetic field exposure is associated with an average decrease in melatonin production of about 8%. Tripling the nighttime magnetic field is linked to a 15% reduction in melatonin production.
The body normally produces more melatonin in darkness than in daylight, so it makes sense you wouldn’t want to lower your melatonin production at night, when you’re aiming for restful sleep.
Making sure your child gets the proper amount and quality of sleep will not only help them maximize their performance at school, but it’s also vital for their long-term mental and physical health, and overall well-being.
It's been found that when you're sleep-deprived, your hankering for carbohydrates goes up, so that the less sleep you get, often the incidence of diabetes increases, and you can gain weight too (naturally, when you consume more than you should). See the book "Lights Out" by T. S. Wiley and Bent Formby for an amazing analysis of the connections between sleep, sugar, exposure to light at night, etc.
This sounds a bit like a potential endocrine system imbalance. Might be wise to check her adrenal sufficiency/insufficiency hormonal output via an in clinic urinary analysis. Quite often, we find with adrenal insufficiency, the blood glucose level is low as well. As the hypothalamus and the pituatary interact and signal a possible hypoglycemic state...thus the craving for more what is known to be junk food. It is a challenging cycle of sorts, which can be successfully broken by getting adequare rest and the intake of proper nutrients, which hopefully will be absorbed to potential.
Blessings
Dr. Trudy
Thanks for the helpful tip, Dr. Trudy.
I am going to check it out.
Sodas and fast food, the Achilles Heel of America.
(... and patents it so they can make a lot of money off it (it's hard to make money off of avoidance or simple, poorly effective shielding devices), and then the dam will burst and all this information they've been withholding will be released and we will all be inundated with endless messages telling us why we need to buy the new technology to protect ourselves from the old technology...) You have hit the nail on the head here! Keywords: Patent, money. A sad fact but hard to beat the system.