WEDNESDAY, May 1, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Popular teens pay a price for being so well-liked by their peers, a new study shows.
Popular crowds are less likely to get the recommended 8 to 10 hours of sleep for teenagers each night, the researchers found.
In fact, the more popular a teen is, the less time they spend sleeping, the results show.
Popular teens tend to sleep up to 27 minutes less each night than their peers, researchers reported in the May 1 issue of the journal Frontiers in Sleep.
It may not seem like much, but among teenagers an extra half hour of sleep can make a big difference, said lead researcher Serena Bauducco, a sleep researcher at Orebro University in Sweden.
“Teenagers are arguably the most sleep-deprived population throughout life,” Bauducco said in a magazine news release. “Previous studies show that 30 minutes of extra sleep can lead to better mental health and better school performance.”
In the study, researchers asked more than 1,300 Swedish teenagers ages 14 to 18 to nominate up to three friends. Those who received the most nominations were defined as the most popular.
The research team then questioned all the teenagers about their sleeping habits.
Teenagers generally find it difficult to fall asleep earlier in the night, the researchers noted.
The sleep-regulating hormone melatonin tends to activate later at night in adolescents, the researchers noted in background notes. On top of that, sleep needs compete with heavier school demands, more active relationships with friends, and more independence from parents.
The results “show that popular teens reported shorter sleep duration,” Bauducco said.
Popular girls, but not popular boys, also reported more insomnia symptoms, the results show. They had a harder time falling or staying asleep, or waking up too early, than the popular kids.
This could be explained by the different ways that boys and girls behave in friendships, the researchers said.
“Girls express more care and concern for their friends and engage in more helping behaviors than boys,” Bauducco said. “This could mean that they have these worries when it comes time to fall asleep.”
Smartphones might be a natural suspect for sleep deprivation among the popular, but Bauducco doubts it.
“We also see that popularity has been associated with worse sleep both before and after the development of wearable communication technology,” he said.
Instead, researchers believe that a growing social circle could mean more time and emotion spent with friends, and less time sleeping.
Many teens try to catch up on sleep on the weekends, but Bauducco said that strategy can be counterproductive.
“Suppose a teenager sleeps in on Sunday until 1 p.m. Falling asleep that night to be ready for school the next day will be a struggle, because they won’t feel tired,” Bauducco said. “Delaying the time to wake up too much can contribute to maintaining the problem of sleep debt accumulated during the week.”
More information
The Sleep Foundation offers more information about sleep and teenagers.
SOURCE: Frontiers, press release, May 1, 2024
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