Can Teens Catch Up on Sleep on Vacation?
Teens and Bad Sleep
Teens generally do not get enough sleep. Sounds simple, but as any parent knows, many factors go into it, and there is no clear solution.
Why we do we care about sleep so much in the first place? As a quick reminder, experimental studies show us that most teens actually need about 9 hours of sleep per night to function optimally. Less sleep than that directly leads to negative outcomes, such as poor school performance, unsafe driving, anxiety, and depression.
Unfortunately, most teens don’t get nearly enough sleep. This is likely due to multiple complex factors. Some of them are biological, such as shifting hormones and circadian rhythms (body’s internal clock). There’s also psychological reasons, such as stress, mood, and perfectionistic thinking keeping teens up at night. Then, there’s many social reasons. There’s extracurricular schedules, phones, social media, and school start times that directly contradict their internal clocks. Teens also see their peers and even their own parents getting insufficient sleep. It feels normal to them, so they do not always see the reason to change.
Bad Sleep… Night After Night
Scientists wanted to know what happens in real life, though. In real life, teens don’t just get one night of bad sleep at a time, but night after night of suboptimal sleep. This mostly occurs during the schoolwork, then in theory, they should be able to “catch up” on weekends and school vacations. So the scientists (Shen, Wiley, & Bei, 2021, published in J Sleep), asked:
1) Can adolescents accumulate “sleep debt” over time?
2) What happens over vacation?
Breaking Research
They found answers to these questions by having over 200 10-12th graders complete daily questionnaires about their sleep. They also had them wear an actigrapher (an acivitymonitor that can be used to measure sleep, like a fancy FitBit). They did this during two weeks of the end of a school term, and then the following two weeks of vacation.
The researchers found that no surprise, teens slept less hours per night during school than on vacation. Also to little surprise, the teens accumulated more sleep debt as the week went on. That is, they had more sleep debt on Friday than Monday. The actigraphy showed this more than the teens’ self-report.
On vacation, the actigraphy showed some nuanced patterns. In the first week of vacation, teens slept more and more each night. By nights 5-6, they were sleeping even more than they needed to. Then, they stabilized to 0 sleep debt for the second week.
No matter whether it was during school or vacation, higher sleep debt led to worse mood the next day. Even one hour of accumulated sleep debt was related to a small, but significant change in mood the next day.
Summary
In summary, even healthy adolescents are incurring sleep debt on a continual basis. As school week progresses, they accumulate more and more sleep debt, and which has a worsening impact on mood. Given the significant but small impact on affect, there are likely many other components that contribute to mood as well. Weekends and vacations offer an opportunity to “catch up,” but often may be insufficient. This article did not specifically address chronic pain or other chronic physical or mental health conditions, so it is possible that the effects of accumulated sleep debt and overall sleep dysregulation are more pronounced these teens. For instance, this study did not capture many reports of teens having difficulty falling asleep. Research that I have been fortunate to conduct in collaboration with colleagues at University of Michigan is currently under review for publication, and has highlighted the variability and complexity of sleep and related factors in the daily lives of adolescents with chronic pain. So as simple as “teens don’t get enough sleep,” sounds, it can be quite complex to help our unique patients.
Practical Tips to Improve Sleep
Talk to your teen. What are their expectations for “normal” sleep? Where do they get these ideas from?
Consider tracking sleep in creative ways just to get a better sense of where things are than trying to remember. You can take notes the old fashioned way, or invest in an activity monitor. Track over a schoolweek and weekend. What do you notice?
Be mindful that as the week goes on, teens’ mood may decrease.
With vacations, perhaps it may be possible to strategically schedule activities to allow for “catch up” sleep in the first few days.
If your child has chronic pain or a chronic illness, be aware that their sleep patterns may be dsyregulated. It may be difficult, or even counterproductive, to try to “catch up.” This research was done with mostly healthy adolescents. Your medical and psychological providers can help figure out what is optimal for your unique child, and how to work towards that.
Ask Yourself These Questions:
The Bio-Psycho-Social Model
BIO: What biological factors may be contributing?
Talk to your child’s pediatrician about their sleep patterns to learn if a sleep study, sleep supplements, or prescription medications are appropriate.
PSYCH: What psychological factors may be contributing?
Explore how your teen is handling stress and mood. Are they kept up at night due to racing thoughts, or pressure to study more?
Your psychologist can help figure out how to break the vicious cycle of bad sleep and anxiety.
SOCIAL: What social factors may be contributing?
Strategize about the weekly schedule of activities. Are there opportunities to cut back or rearrange?
Work toward better sleep habits as a family.
Something as simple as “sleep more” can be tricky in real life to implement. It can feel like there are so many factors working against us, and sometimes teens don’t want to hear it from their parents or pediatrician (cue eye roll). Together with your teen, we can work toward what matters to them and what matters to you- feeling good and developing independence, habits, and resilience for life. Click the Get Started button at the top right of your screen to help your teen get better sleep and feel like themselves again.