Posted June 12, 2009
Teenagers required to be in bed by 10 p.m. on school nights are less likely to be depressed or suicidal, U.S. sleep researchers said.
Of those interviewed for a study, teenagers allowed to remain up till midnight or later on week nights were 42 percent more likely to be depressed than teens whose parents ordered them to bed by 10 p.m, said James Gangwisch, a researcher at Columbia University Medical Center.
Teenagers who regularly stayed up past 10 p.m. were 30 percent more likely to have had thoughts of suicide during the last year, the study found.
“We feel like we can eat into our sleep time, but we pay for it in many different ways,” Gangwisch said in a statement released by the university.
Gangwisch and his team analyzed surveys from 15,659 teenagers and their parents who participated in a National Institutes of Health study of adolescents.
Date: June 9, 2009 URL: www.upi.com
