2023-07-04 18:05:36
Annual survey by Adolescence Laboratory and Iard on over 5,000 students between 13 and 19 years old. Among the causes, school worries, lack of sleep, negative thoughts
Among the negative legacies left by Covid to teenagers, there is the bad habit of going to sleep very late, even if there is school the next day. The data emerges from the 2023 edition of the Survey on the lifestyles of adolescents living in Italy – just presented – carried out annually by the Adolescence Laboratory Association (www.laboratorioadolescenza.org) and IARD Research Institute on a nationally representative sample of 5,670 students between 13 and 19 years old.
The legacy of Covid but not only
If we move away from the peak of night owls recorded in the 2020-2021 survey in the midst of the pandemic (58% went to sleep after 11pm), we nevertheless remain very far from the pre-Covid levels (28.1%) reaching, already from last year, on a worrying 47.6%. But to make the situation worse is that, if during Covid a few hours of sleep could be recovered in the morning, because going to school meant getting up and – perhaps still in pajamas – turning on the computer, today the alarm clock went off again much earlier. Furthermore, the percentage of those who say they find it difficult to fall asleep (71.9%) is still very high – essentially unchanged since the times of Covid – where the main reasons for this difficulty are indicated in concern for school (60.7%), in negative thoughts (58.1%) and in unmotivated nervousness (57.8%). But also in the banal lack of sleep (60%).
The biological mechanism of sleep
Precisely with regard to lack of sleep, it is important to know what our ability to fall asleep technically depends on. To be responsible for our sleep a hormone produced by a gland located at the base of the brain – melatonin – which acts on the hypothalamus and has the function of regulating the sleep-wake cycle. And melatonin is naturally produced in the absence of light, shortly after the onset of darkness – which is why night is the natural time for humans to sleep – and its concentrations in the blood rise rapidly, reaching a maximum between 2 and 4 am. 4 at night and then gradually decrease as morning approaches. One of the causes that can determine the difficulty of adolescents in falling asleep is therefore precisely the evening and night use of smartphones and computers, often in bed until a moment before they decide to try to fall asleep, because the light stimulations and the white light /bluish of monitors appear to be strong inhibitors of melatonin production.
In fact, the night appears more and more, for adolescents, a space destined not to sleep, but to continue – undisturbed – the relationship activities on social networks or the vision of endless series on specialized platforms, or short videos and POVs (Point of View) on the ubiquitous Instagram and TikTok. It is no coincidence that the habit of having the smartphone turned on 24/7 (therefore including the night) concerns over 75% of generation Z and its surroundings. And also in this case the phenomenon, which Covid had accelerated, has now taken root.
Because the phenomenon worries
But why does little and bad sleep worry the experts so much? Sleep deprivation, as they say in technical jargon – explains Marina Picca, president of the Italian Society of Pediatric Primary Care, Lombardy section and member of the board of directors of Adolescence Laboratory – is a dysfunctional behavior that can have serious repercussions on both physical and mental health of a person, with effects ranging from psychophysical tiredness to bad mood and easy irritability, from difficulty in concentration and learning to memory loss, alteration of decision-making ability, loss of interest in daily activities.
The earlier they are, the greater the consequences of an emotional-behavioral type such as anxiety, depression, and on cognitive processes. Unfortunately – underlines the expert – we are increasingly seeing irritability, tiredness, reduced concentration and attention attributable to sleep loss even in young children, we have documented this a lot during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the uncertainty, interruptions in daily routine, radical life changes, and concerns for the health and well-being of family and loved ones.
What are the possible remedies
What can be done, then, to stem these teenagers of the night? Faced with difficulty sleeping – explains Giovanni Biggio, professor emeritus of neuropsychopharmacology at the University of Cagliari – if the strategic objective must be to seek and act on the causes and lifestyles that determine the situation (above all, light, cell phone and computer off) it is necessary to intervene promptly also on the effects, because the negative consequences of getting too little or bad sleep manifest themselves very quickly.
The first and most effective remedy to help the body “engage” sleep and restore the precious “circadian rhythm” (wake-sleep) is to take this precious melatonin in the extended release formulation. An absolutely natural and harmless solution, so much so that it can be prescribed without problems even to small children in whom sleep problems are frequent. Just as – continues Biggio – a supplement based on saffron extracts (which act on irritability and bad mood), equally natural and harmless, is also very useful.
July 4, 2023 (change July 4, 2023 | 18:05)
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