What are the most common sleep problems for teenagers?

What are the most common sleep problems for teenagers?

Gary Feldman (Medical Director, Stramski Disorders Center, Miller Children's Hospital ) gives expert video advice on: What are the most common sleep problems for teenagers? and more...

The most common sleep problems that teenagers have are what we call "sleep phase disruption" or "delayed sleep phase syndrome." And that is when they naturally actually become tired much later than usual and it's sort of part of a transition physiology. So teenagers need just over 9 hours of sleep at night but they only become sleepy much later, maybe 11: 11:30. So the problem is they only feel tired late at night and they are IMing and that's stimulating them so, and they have homework to do which they leave to the last minute. So they probably only go to bed at midnight. And they have to be up at some ridiculous hour like 6:00 or 7:00 to get to school, so they are very sleep deprived during school and the majority of teenagers are sleep deprived period. Now when it comes to the weekend is they go out Friday night at get in late, but they sleep in and they sleep in until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon on Saturday. So now they have kind of caught up on their sleep loss. So come Saturday evening they are not tired, so they only go to bed at 100: or 2:00 in the morning on Sunday morning. And so they sleep in on sunday afternoon, and so they then are not tired on Monday and have to wake up early in the morning. So these kids lock themselves into a situation where they are constantly sleep deprived.