Fact: getting your teen out of bed certainly isn’t as easy A, B, Zzz…
However, a new study out of the University of Western Australia has revealed a teen’s preference to hit that snooze button multiple times is, in fact, a biological quirk rather than laziness.
Researchers at the Centre for Sleep Science collected the data of elite judo players from the Australian Institute of Sports Combat Centre.
In a bid to better understand how sleep can affect both physical and cognitive performance, they monitored their use of electronic devices in the evening, hypothesising that using smartphones and tablets would negatively affect sleep length and quality.
Wearing an activity monitor to measure sleep quality and next-day performance, 23 teens were observed as their technology was removed for 48 hours.
Much to their surprise, scientists found there to be no improvement to sleep quality or cognitive performance when devices were removed compared to those who scrolled as normal, however one factor did make a rather large difference…
The teen’s judo sessions often commenced in the early morning, meaning that by the time they arose, they’d only really had seven to eight hours sleep.
However, when they were able to sleep up to 10 hours, both physical and cognitive performance noticeably improved.
“Early morning starts for young adults can impact sleep opportunities and lead to sleep loss,” says lead researcher Ian Dunican.
“By scheduling daily training start times after 8am, young athletes have more opportunity for sleep and recovery, leading to improved athletic performance.”
While the researchers tested this theory on athletic teenagers, they did say that this same notion can be applied to any adolescent as it is biologically wired inside them to sleep more.
The takeaway: let your teen sleep in!
