Teenagers face an epidemic of sleep deprivation. We explain why

Expert: Teen Sleep Deprivation Affects Learning 0:50 (CNN) — America’s teens aren’t getting enough sleep these days, and author Lisa L. Lewis isn’t resting on her laurels.
Lewis, a mother of two, helped push through the first law in the nation requiring a healthy school start time for teens—a law that goes into effect in California this summer. Her upcoming book, “The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers Are So Tired, and How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive,” will be released on June 7, detailing a number of things parents and guardians need to know. about teens and sleep. Lisa L. Lewis’s book, “The Sleep-Deprived Teen,” will be released June 7. Lewis shared why sleep is so relevant to teens, how much sleep they should get, and why they need more sleep than adults. She also discusses all the factors that negatively impact teen sleep: technology, gender, sexual identity, and socioeconomic status, among others. CNN recently caught up with Lewis to discuss her work and to learn more about how parents and guardians can help their children get more sleep. This conversation has been edited and summarized for clarity. CNN: What led you to write a book about teens and sleep? Lisa Lewis: The whole thing about teens and sleep and school start times came to mind when my oldest son, who is now in college, entered high school. At the time, school started at 7:30 am and I just knew that was too early. I would drive him to school, and every morning I would notice that he really wasn’t very awake. Every afternoon he came home really exhausted. I wanted to understand why school started so early. What I found is that it was an even more complex issue. That same month, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its benchmark report on school start times, shortly after a policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics on the subject. His recommendations were that middle schools and high schools should not start before 8:30 am That’s what got me involved. CNN: So why do teens need so much sleep? Lewis: As puberty begins, adolescents experience a shift in their circadian rhythm, and their biological clocks shift to a later time. This is also related to the release of melatonin, which prepares our body for sleep. As children become adolescents, melatonin begins to be released later. This means that teens aren’t ready for bed until 11 pm, and since that melatonin doesn’t fade until later, teens need to wake up later than they used to. So they sleep more. CNN: How many hours of sleep should teens get? Lewis: Most teens should get eight to 10 hours of sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation. The amount of sleep we require throughout our lives changes. When it comes to children up to 13 years old, they need between nine and 11 hours. The recommended range for adults is seven to nine hours. There are some teens and adults for whom the lower range of recommended hours is sufficient. There are also teenagers for whom 10 hours is just what they need. Unfortunately, many teens don’t get even the minimum of eight hours of sleep. CDC data indicates that in 2007, only 31% of adolescents slept eight hours or more. By 2019, that figure was down to 22%. We are in an epidemic of sleep deprivation for teenagers. CNN: What are the consequences of teens not getting enough sleep? Lewis: Sleep for adolescents is an emotional buffer and provides emotional resilience. Teenagers are going through an important phase of brain development, and sleep is where much of that development occurs. In the classroom, students who are asleep are not learning. Students who are there and not fully awake are not learning well. Sleep deprivation limits students’ acquisition of information, impedes retention of information, and hampers the ability to retrieve that information. Several studies have indicated that when schools switch to later start times, they see improvements in attendance and graduation rates go up. In the case of sports, sleep improves performance; In addition, adolescents’ bodies release growth hormone, which heals injuries, when they sleep, so being well-rested is a competitive advantage. In general, well-rested teens are happier and healthier and do better in school. They are more emotionally resilient. And it is easier to live with them. CNN: Besides early start times, what are other external factors that can disturb teens’ sleep? Lewis: Stress is one of the most important. If your kids can’t fall asleep before 11 p.m., you need to see if they are overworked or have excessive hours. Technology is another factor. If a teenager is up until 1 or 2 in the morning playing video games, that also robs them of sleep. There are other factors. Menstrual cramps can affect sleep. We know that sexual and gender minority teens sleep worse than their peers, as do teens of color. There are also other factors, such as living in crowded conditions, or in noisy places or places where teens don’t feel safe, that can affect sleep. CNN: How do you think the chaos of the pandemic years has affected teen sleep? Lewis: I think the biggest issue is mental health. All the major groups have sounded the alarm bells about adolescent mental health. In December, the US Surgeon General issued a special advisory on adolescent mental health. The CDC released new data last month showing that mental health has worsened in teens. CNN: How can parents and caregivers convince teens that they need more sleep? Lewis: Lecturing them doesn’t have the desired effect. Having a conversation is more helpful, especially if it’s an ongoing conversation. Model good behaviors, such as not using technology in the hour before bedtime. Teach them things like a routine to relax. Our brains are not like computers: you don’t turn it off and lay down on the pillow and fall asleep. The important thing is not to force any of this. CNN: At what point did your project expand to the legal profession? Lewis: They went hand in hand. After those big reports came out, I wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times the following fall about why schools should start later in the morning. That article was read by California State Senator Anthony Portantino, who also had him in his sights. He started looking into the issue and introduced a school start times bill in February 2017. I contacted a national nonprofit called Start School Later and created a local chapter. As the bill progressed, I ended up testifying before the state education committee. It was a long process that culminated in Gov. Gavin Newsom signing the bill into law in 2019. CNN: Why is this new law significant? Lewis: The new law goes into effect July 1, and is the first of its kind in the nation that requires healthy high school start times. Specifies that for public and private charter secondary schools, start times may not be earlier than 8 a.m., and for high schools, start times may not be earlier than 8:30 a.m. Similar laws elsewhere have proven to be successful. So far, the biggest city to change its start times is Seattle; they did it in 2016. The city did all of these surveys before and after that change, and they learned that students got an extra 34 minutes of sleep on school nights once start times were pushed back. That’s huge. CNN: What are the big questions you will investigate next? Lewis: So far, California is the only state that has enacted a law of this scope. That leaves plenty of room to work with other states. Right now, both New York and New Jersey have active bills on this topic, but no other state has passed a law like this. There is a great opportunity to study the possibility of doing this in all other states; Teen sleep deprivation isn’t just a California problem. It’s something I’ll be focusing on for quite some time. –Matt Villano is a writer and editor based in California. His work has appeared in The New York Times, CNN and other media.