Guest Post
It’s 10 p.m. on a school night, and it’s time for your teen to get some shut eye – but, of course, they ‘d rather be playing with their phone or surfing the web. You tell them to go to bed, and they promise they will in a minute. Satisfied, you walk away.
Five minutes pass, then ten, then thirty, and before you know it, it’s midnight; now it’s your turn to catch some Z’s. As you brush your teeth, you can’t help but notice a ghostly white glow coming from your teen’s bedroom. Surprise, surprise: not only are they not asleep, but they haven’t even moved from when you last spoke to them!
Thanks to smart phones and social media, today’s teens can stay in touch 24/7. This may enable them to be more connected, but it also equals less sleep. Current sleep studies indicate that adolescents require about 9 hours of sleep a night. Yet most teens only get 7 or 8 hours (and frequently, even less than that).
Scientific research continues to reiterate the vitality of a good nights’ sleep for optimal health and academic performance.
Now, there’s another incentive to enforce bedtime even more stringently – a pilot sleep program for teens with asthma found that more sleep was associated with improved lung function during the day, and fewer asthma attacks at night.
In other words, sleep may be a teens’ best weapon in the fight against asthma (brief disclaimer: this small-scale study only involved a dozen teenagers, meaning that its findings are preliminary and should be taken with a grain of salt).
Researchers examined the impact of healthy sleep duration on asthma symptoms and pulmonary function through the use of sleep diaries, actigraphs (a device which measures the deepness of sleep), and peak flow meters.
Participants completed a baseline sleep stabilization week, with an average sleep time of 7.5 hours a night (well below the recommended 9 hours); this control period was followed by 5 nights of 10 hours of sleep. Compared to the baseline stabilization period, the extended sleep period was associated with fewer nocturnal asthma symptoms, decreased inflammation, and more consistency in day-to-day pulmonary function.
“Increased sleep duration may contribute to decreased inflammation and improved asthma expression,” reported chief investigation Lisa Meltzer, MD, of the National Jewish Health Center in Denver. Meltzer added that a lack of sleep could impair teens’ adherence to their asthma treatments, as a result of the impairment in executive function that often results from inadequate sleep.
Ongoing research on this topic will involve a larger sample size, and will attempt to further scientists’ understanding of the link between sleep deprivation and respiratory inflammation. In the interim, it looks like parents of asthmatic teens have another incentive to put the brakes on all that nighttime texting.
About the author –
Zoe Camp is an avid health blogger for Just Nebulizers, and a student at Columbia University in New York City. When she’s not blogging about nebulizers, she enjoys researching all things respiratory health.
Donna is a Professional Blogger, Brand Ambassador, Social Media Consultant, Freelancer, wife, and proud mom. Blog by Donna encompasses all that… she writes about family life and being a woman while weaving in articles about the brands and products she and her family love.
Hello Zoe,
Thank you for sharing this information with us. My teen suffers from a seizure disorder and his best medicine is sleep. 🙂
Appreciate the time you took to put this together for us. Have a great weekend ladies!
Sleep really is the best medicine.
I think more sleep is the answer to a lot of things…I need more, I’d be happier and more energetic.
Sleep helps a lot of things.
Ahhh. Sleep. How I love thee.
Want to bet more sleep is the solution to a lot of health problems? We certainly don’t get enough of it in our busy society.
My biggest negative memory as a teen was always having to wake up so early for school. I could lay in bed but I just, plain, wouldn’t get tired and couldn’t fall asleep until late. I guess I don’t have much of an answer to that problem but I think it’s worth thinking about.
Sleep is the answer for about everything that ails ya!
I know sleep is good for what ails you but I am a night owl. I do my best work at night. I will try to sleep later in the morning.
One of the best things for your health is sleep!
very interesting! I wish it would help my toddler the same!
Sleep seems to be the answer to lots of things!
Huh this is interesting. We don’t have asthma in our family but a close friends husband and kids all have it. I’ll have to tell her about this.
It seriously is amazing how much sleep is important to your overall health. Very interesting.
Great to know, something other than medication helps.
such an interesting article thanks for sharing
Huh, I had no idea! I have severe asthma- I’m not a teen, but I should probably start getting more sleep too. {I say, while I write this at 3am.}
This is really great info. Sleep is definitely the best medicine for what ails you. I have 3 tweens/teens in the house and have to be very diligent in making sure electronic devices get turned off at night.
I don’t know much about asthma (except that one sister and sister-in-law has it), but it’s so true that sleep is the best medicine.
Sometimes it’s not good that we live in a day and age with cell phones and smart phones. Especially when there’s evidence that lack of sleep is contributing to a health problem like asthma!
We got parental controls on my daughter’s cell phone so that she can’t stay up all night texting. It is important that kids get enough sleep each and every night.
This is totally interesting!
Sleep is good for so many things!
Wow I should have my son read this article he has asthma and I can so relate to the “5 minutes” becomes longer thing.
I can totally see why that connection exists; makes total sense to me!
Sleep truly is essential to healing anything.
That’s very interesting. Getting enough sleep is important for so many things.
AS an asthma patient this is interesting to me! Thanks for sharing.