This study was designed to assess difficulty waking up for school, as a specific sleep problem among adolescents. Sleep in adolescence is important to growth and development and vital for maintaining hormonal balance, stabilising mood and performance. Adolescence is also marked by profound changes to sleep timing and composition, and in particular waking up for school may become a significant issue for teens.
Sleep is important for physical, emotional and mental health, particularly for adolescents. Developing a sleep disorder in adolescence is a proven risk factor for future physical disorders, such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus. There are proven links to poor cognitive and academic performance due to difficulty paying attention and ability to focus, memory decline, impaired decision making, decreased reaction time and decreased creativity. Psychiatric and psychological disorders are also proven to escalate, including drug and alcohol abuse, increased aggression, irritability and risk-taking behaviour, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideology and behaviour, poor impulse control, poor motivation and difficulties with social interaction.
This study used subjective data from two school populations in Japan to gather data. This study found a higher percentage of boys, compared to girls were prone to school tardiness due to difficulty waking up and waking feeling unrefreshed, and was increasingly reported among students in higher grades. There was a definite relationship to school tardiness, increased school absenteeism. Social behaviours of media use (watching TV, using the internet) and behaviours of smoking and drinking were found to be both significantly higher in this group, and reported decreased mental health was increasingly linked with teens reporting difficulty waking up. Significantly, hypersomnia is an observed symptom of psychiatric disorders.
This study provides and insight into the link between difficulty waking up for school and factors such as sleep status, lifestyle, mental health of teenagers, which may indicate the presence of underlying disease among adolescents.
Source:
Yu Kinoshita, Osamu Itani, Yuichiro Otsuka, Yuuki Matsumoto, Sachi Nakagome, Yoneatsu Osaki, Susumu Higuchi, Maki Jike, Hideyuki Kanda, Yoshitaka Kaneita, A nationwide cross-sectional study of difficulty waking up for school among adolescents, Sleep, 2021;, zsab157, https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsab157
