Advancing Bedtime Found Effective in Increasing Teens' Sleep Duration

Adolescents can considerably boost sleep duration by advancing bedtime, and this capability does not change between ages 10 and 21 years old, according to a study published in Pediatrics.

More research is required to decide how to integrate the findings to effectively implement experiment-controlled sleep schedules and foster real-world increases in sleep duration.

This study was conducted because sleep duration lessens by approximately 10 minutes per year throughout adolescence. A delay in the circadian phase and homeostatic sleep regulation changes allow adolescents to stay awake later.

Study authors were trying to see if teens were able to increase sleep duration by advancing bedtime, meaning that teens would have a guardian-set bedtime earlier than when they would choose to go to sleep. The researchers also examined whether sleep duration capacity changes with age.

“Reduced sleep duration and daytime sleepiness are associated with negative scholastic, behavioral, and mental health consequences. Adolescents with later bedtimes, shorter sleep duration, and greater daytime sleepiness report lower school enjoyment, increased absences and tardiness, and lower academic performance,” said the study authors.

First, a younger cohort of 77 participants whose ages ranged from 9.9 to 16.2 years were studied yearly for 3 years, while an additional cohort of 67 participants whose ages ranged from 15.0 to 20.6 years were studied just once.

Then, each year, participants kept each of 3 different time in bed (TIB) schedules (7, 8.5, and 10 hours) for 4 nights in a row. Participants kept their usual weekly wake times; TIB was changed by advancing bedtimes to earlier in the evening. The authors recorded polysomnography-measured sleep durations from night 4 of the TIB schedule.

It was seen that in spite of increases in sleep onset latency and wake following sleep onset, sleep duration grew with TIB as bedtime was advanced. Average (SD) sleep duration grew from 402.8 (1.6) minutes with 7 hours to 470.6 (2.1) minutes to 8.5 hours 527.5 (3.0) minutes with 10 hours TIB. Sleep duration lowered with age (1.55 [0.48] minutes/year). However, the TIB impact on sleep duration did not (TIB by age interaction, P = .42).

The authors stated that their data clearly display that adolescents and young adults can grow their sleep duration by advancing their bedtime.

They continued, saying that their data showed adolescents can conquer this inclination to stay up later and grow their sleep duration with earlier bedtimes. Average sleep duration grew not only with TIB extended from 7 to 8.5 hours but grew by 1 extra hour with a TIB of 10 hours.

Additionally, previous studies support present study findings that increased sleep duration is associated with advancing bedtimes.

Study authors say that advancing adolescents’ bedtime should be promoted, and that there also needs to be additional study to see how to translate the present findings into real-world applications.

Due to the study design, one limitation is that study authors don’t know if participants would have been able to maintain the new sleep schedule for more than 4 nights or if increased sleep duration would continue. Another limitation is that even though the authors ascribe age-related changes in sleep duration to a circadian phase interruption, there was no measurement of the circadian phase.

“Our current findings supporting the effectiveness of advancing bedtime require additional studies to determine how to translate these findings into real-world applications to increase adolescent sleep duration,” the study authors concluded.

Reference

Campbell I G, Cruz-Basilio A, Figueroa J G, Bottom V B. Earlier bedtime and its effect on adolescent sleep duration. Pediatrics. Published online June 12, 2023. doi: 10.1542/peds.2022-060607