The equivalent of one night’s sleep lost per week. According to the conclusions of a study carried out by a team of researchers from the universities of Paris-Nanterre and Strasbourg for the Vinci Autoroutes Foundation and the National Federation of Schools, Parents and Educators, one in two adolescents sleeps less than 7 hours a night and You have chronic sleep debt.
In this work, 115 relatives participated, made up of an adolescent of 14 years on average, one or two parents and one or more siblings. They were conducted in the form of individual and group interviews, but also questionnaires on sleep and quality of life. They were also followed up by actimetry, an analysis of body movements during sleep.
He pointed out the attitude of the parents
The total of 7 hours of sleep per night is grossly insufficient. According to the Morpheus Network, an association specializing in the management of sleep disorders, “adolescents still have significant sleep needs. To be in good shape, they need an average of 9 hours of sleep.”
With BFMTV, several university students confirm this downward trend and describe the consequences of lack of sleep in their daily lives. “I watch Netflix and fall asleep around 11:45 pm,” describes Keyla, a fifth grader. “We are tired the next day”, “sometimes I listen to the teachers and they go with my ideas, I can’t go on anymore”, two of her classmates abound.
If the National Academy of Medicine recently described the consequences of exposure to light from screens in children and adolescents as a “public health problem”, this new work especially insists on the influence of parental habits on the sleep cycle of their children.
“If parents pay attention to sleep, to their own sleep, they pay attention to their children’s, adolescents imbue themselves with this example and they themselves will be more attentive to their sleep,” Bernadette Moreau, general manager of Vinci Autoroutes, confirmed to BFMTV. Foundation, in charge of the study.
find your rhythm
This study also describes the consequences of lack of sleep in adolescents and points out deleterious effects on their quality of life, particularly on mood, school results and sports performance.
To guard against this, Eve Reynaud, the postdoctoral researcher in charge of the study, lists some tips for BFMTV.
“You have to try to go to bed at the same time every night by encouraging quiet moments without screens before bed: reading, music or creative activity. You have to avoid sports very late at night, because there is an adrenaline rush”. she says.
The compromise in school performance can be explained by the 2017 work of Inserm researchers published in the journal scientific reports, who discovered that lack of sleep caused a decrease in the volume of gray matter in the brain of adolescents. This has been identified in the frontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the precuneus, three brain regions involved precisely in attention and concentration.
The National Academy of Medicine also points to an increase in mood disorders (stress, anxiety-depression) and violent and hyperactive behaviors, as well as metabolic disorders.
Source: BFM TV
