Sleep deprived teens, Mumbai city, study by Jaslok Hospital

8 out of 10 young teens suffer from sleep deprivation • Jaslok Hospital study throws up alarming figures; blames internet, television for poor sleep patterns • Docs say lack of sleep could lead to early heart problems Jyoti Shelar Freakin' Awesome! Freakin' Awesome! Freakin' Awesome! Freakin' Awesome! Freakin' Awesome! Mail this article Mail this page Print this article Print this page Translate this page Translate this page Rate me.... Share Share Reddit.com Share del.icio.us Share StumbleUpon.com 0digg Posted On Saturday, December 10, 2011 at 02:35:48 AM It is not only you who is constantly deprived of a good night's rest. Your child, too, could be suffering from serious sleep deprivation. A study conducted by doctors at Jaslok Hospital has revealed that what was so far considered an adult problem in urban India has percolated down to teenagers as well. The survey, Sleepiness Patterns in Urban Adolescents in Western India, says that one in every four teenagers between 13 and 15 years of age is suffering from “significant sleep deprivation” (only 4-6 hours per night), and 57 per cent others from “moderate sleep deprivation” (6-8 hours), both conditions that could lead to serious health problems in the long run. The main reason for this alarming trend, the study says, is excessive exposure to technology: long hours spent in front of the TV, on video games, on mobile phones, and on the Internet. “An adolescent in this 13 to 15 age-group should sleep for between eight-and-a-half hours to nine-and-a-quarter hours to remain in good health. But this mandatory target was consistently met by hardly any of the 314 teenagers covered in the survey,” said Dr Preeti Devnani, with Jaslok hospital’s department of neurology and neurophysiology. Doctors found that lack of sleep led to teenagers constantly operating below their potential during the course of any normal day. They discovered that 32.16 per cent of kids surveyed felt drowsy soon after they reached school, 25 per cent towards the day’s last class, 20 per cent on their way back, 30 per cent after they got back home, and 55 per cent in the early evening. As many as 20 per cent got ‘sleep attacks’; in other words, they did not realise they had fallen asleep until they were woken up. While these short-term effects of sleep deprivation are bad enough, the long-term dangers are far more worrying, starting with fatigue, body-ache and hypertension, and going all the way up to early heart trouble. Dr H N Mallick, president of the Indian Society of Sleep Research, said the figures indicated it was about time parents and children started realising good sleep was vital for the body. “We talk about health issues, nutrition, cardiac problems, and so on, but we are yet to understand the importance of sleep,” Mallick, a professor with the department of physiology at New Delhi’s All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, told Mumbai Mirror. “Lack of sleep results in slow learning, lack of concentration, and dip in energy levels in the short term, and may lead to stress, and from there to early cardiac problems,” he said, adding that the dangers were far greater in big cities, which took pride in how they ‘never sleep’. Peer Pressure Parents, on the other hand, said that they were constantly failing to enforce a healthy regimen because excessive school work took up most of their kids’ day, and the temptation of various sources of entertainment kept them up late at night. “My daughter often bunks because she is unable to get up in the morning for her 7.10 am school,” said Anuja Keer, mother of 14-year-old Manvi, who studies in class 9. “She spends most of her time on the computer, watching TV, and on the phone. I’ve tried to discipline her but it’s hard to fight peer pressure. All children seem to have the same routine these days. They never go to bed before midnight, and are therefore never able to get good sleep,” she said. Other parents we spoke to, 14-year-old Aryan’s father Rajiv Patel and 13-year-old Atharva’s mother Pallavi, blamed their kids’ lack of sleep on excessive school work. “Aryan’s school starts at 6.50 am, but by the time he sleeps at night it’s past 12 because there is homework, projects, and so on. He is stuck to his computer with that all day. I have now made it compulsory for him to sleep in the afternoon for 2 to 3 hours,” Patel said. Koli said that even if Atharva slept by 10pm, he had to be up before 5 in the morning to get ready for school. “In the afternoon, he has classes and then goes to play in the evening. It leaves him stressed throughout the day,” she said. • Lack of sleep results in slow learning and may lead to stress and from there to early cardiac problems - Dr H N Mallick, president of Indian Society of Sleep Research --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This refers to the article titled ‘8 out of 10 young teens suffer from sleep deprivation’ (MM, December 10). The world is moving at a rapid pace, and it feels like people do not have time for their children anymore. Kids themselves lead very busy lives, with school, tuition, sports classes and so on. Many parents don’t even get to see their children, except on weekends. Thus kids have no choice but to turn to their TVs, phones and computers. This calls for a larger change in parenting. People need to stop spending so much time at their jobs, and devote a little more to their children instead. – Raju Iyer The results of the study, conducted by doctors at the Jaslok Hospital, are disturbing. It is a wake up call for parents, who need to think about the pressure they put on their children. Also, even if the children protest parents need to be assertive and ensure that their kids get sufficient sleep. – Deepak Chikramane The frightening statistics of both youngsters and adults suffering from a number of ailments, and the doctors’ suggestions, seem a little unbelievable. Let us not rely completely on remedies doctors suggest. Instead of getting tense about every new statistic that survey’s throw up, we need to relax and live easy lives. – Mukund Kumar ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sleep deprivation linked to depression in teens By Anne Harding, Health.com June 9, 2010 -- Updated 1220 GMT (2020 HKT) Health The rate of depression among the students was very high in the study of high schoolers and sleep. The rate of depression among the students was very high in the study of high schoolers and sleep. STORY HIGHLIGHTS Daytime sleepiness appears to be the new normal for adolescents It's not clear from the study whether sleeping poorly is a symptom of depression Parents can help by setting household rules and keeping an eye on computer, phone use RELATED TOPICS Depression Education Mental Health Mood Disorders (Health.com) -- Sleep-deprived high school students who doze off in class aren't just risking the wrath of their teachers. They're also three times more likely to be depressed than their alert classmates who get enough sleep, a new study has found. "Sleep deprivation and depression go hand in hand among teenagers," says the study's lead author, Mahmood Siddique, D.O., a sleep medicine specialist at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. "Instead of giving them medications, I'd rather give them a chance to sleep better, and more." Daytime sleepiness appears to be the new normal for adolescents. More than half of the 262 high school seniors who participated in the study were "excessively sleepy," according to a commonly used scale that gauges how likely a person is to doze off during everyday activities such as reading, watching TV, or sitting in a traffic jam. Health.com: Foods to boost your mood The students reported sleeping an average of about six hours on school nights and eight hours on the weekend, far less than the nine hours a night--at least--that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for high school students. Health.com: How to cope with less sleep at work The rate of depression among the students was very high. Thirty percent of the teens had strong symptoms of depression, while an additional 32 percent had some depression symptoms, according to the study, which was presented today in San Antonio at SLEEP 2010, an annual meeting of sleep researchers. The students who were excessively sleepy during the day were three times more likely to have strong depression symptoms than their well-rested peers, Dr. Siddique and his colleagues found. However, it's not clear from the study whether sleeping poorly is a symptom of depression, or vice versa. "It makes sense that daytime sleepiness would be associated with depression," says James Gangwisch, Ph.D., a psychotherapist and sleep specialist at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, in New York City. While the ill effects of depression on sleep are well known, he adds, mounting evidence suggests that sleep deprivation in and of itself can contribute to depression. Health.com: What's keeping you awake at night? Though the study was relatively small and limited to a single high school, experts say the findings likely reflect the experience of American adolescents as a whole. High school students in particular are facing greater academic pressure and college competition than ever before, and all those AP classes and extracurricular activities can eat into sleep time. Health.com: How to sleep easier and avoid midday fatigue "To get into a good college, it's not enough to be an A student," says Dr. Lisa Shives, M.D., the medical director of Northshore Sleep Medicine, in Evanston, Illinois. "You've got to play football and be captain of the chess team, too." Thanks to social media websites and cell phones brimming with text messages, teens' social lives are increasingly hectic as well. "They want to stay in the loop," Gangwisch says. "Their peers are so important that if there's a way to be in touch with them in the middle of the night, they want to do it." Health.com: No-cost ways to fight depression Parents can help their overburdened and over-connected teens get enough sleep by setting household rules and keeping an eye on computer and cell-phone use, says Ann Niles, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in New York City who works with middle school students. "They'll go in their room at a certain time, but nobody's really monitoring them or watching how they're settling down or relaxing," she says. Turning off the TV and computers after a certain hour and keeping technology--even cell phones--out of teenagers' bedrooms may be a good start. "Any electrical stimulus in the bedroom in the middle of the night is certainly going to impair sleep," says Lauren Hale, Ph.D., an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the Stony Brook University Medical Center, in Stony Brook, New York. Old-school parenting is still important in the digital age, Niles says. "Before computers it was the telephone, and before the telephone it was playing with the neighbors," she says. "Regardless of the technology or what kids are spending their time on, we have to set limits and rules and try to ensure that kids are watching out for their own health." Copyright Health Magazine 2011