Adolescents could get almost 5 extra hours of sleep per week if they have a consistent lights-out time and no phone access in bed, according to a study that analysed boarding school students who followed these rules.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a naturalistic experiment showing that the secret to good sleep in teenagers is quite simple: a regular routine and no mobile devices at night,鈥� says Kurt Lushington at the University of South Australia.
Lushington and his colleague Alex Reardon studied the sleep patterns of 59 boarding students and 250 day students at a high school in Adelaide. The students were 15 to 18 years old and a mix of boys and girls.
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The boarders had to leave their phones in a kitchen area or on their desk before they went to bed and turn out their lights by a set time, which varied according to their age.
The boarders slept for 40 minutes longer per night than the day students, averaging 8 hours and 26 minutes, compared with 7 hours and 46 minutes.
鈥淚 think this shows that if you put these norms in place, kids will go along with them,鈥� says Lushington, who presented the results at the Australasian Sleep Association meeting in Brisbane in November.
Asaduzzaman Khan at the University of Queensland in Australia doesn鈥檛 recommend that parents take a teen鈥檚 phone away, but rather have a discussion to reach an agreement on a phone curfew.
This is more likely to work if parents do likewise and offer other entertainment, like books, says Khan. 鈥淚t can be a real challenge and there鈥檚 no one-size-fits-all approach, but I think it鈥檚 worth trying for the benefits to mental and physical health, attention, learning ability and academic performance that come with extra sleep.鈥�
