Sleep

Sleep is an essential function. It allows your body and mind to recharge, leaving you refreshed and alert when you wake up. Healthy sleep also helps the body remain healthy and fight off diseases. Without enough sleep, the brain cannot function properly. This can impair your abilities to concentrate, think clearly, and process memories.

Healthy sleep is especially important for adolescents due to the profound mental, physical, social, and emotional development occurring during this time. Adolescents need more sleep than adults, and should be aiming for 8 to 10 hours a night.

What can affect sleep?

There is a close connection between sleep and your mental health. If you’re having difficulty sleeping, this can make coping with daily life hard, and if you’re struggling with your mental health, you may find you can’t sleep.

Things that might impact your sleep can include:

• Anxiety, stress and/or worries
• Lack of routine or altered sleep – not having a set routine and set time for when you go to bed can cause sleep problems. Staying up late watching TV, gaming or scrolling through your phone and talking with friends can also alter your sleep patterns. The light from screens can keep you awake for longer and make it harder to fall asleep
• Where you sleep – the environment where you sleep is also important for getting a good night’s sleep. If you sleep somewhere uncomfortable or noisy, for example, this may disturb your sleep or keep you awake
• Medication – taking certain medications, or coming off medications, can lead to a lack of sleep
• Struggling with your mental health

What can help?

Supporting your child who can’t sleep

If your child is struggling to sleep, click on the link to find out how you can support them and places you can get help.

https://kidshealth.org/en/parents/sleep-problems.html

References

• Kidshealth.org
• Sleepfoundation.org
• Youngminds.org.uk