I believe that our 15-year-old son may be going into hibernation or something very close to it. We have to call him about 50 times to wake him up in the morning, and when we do succeed, he just nods off again. Quite often, I will check on him to see if he is doing his schoolwork. I will see him typing on his computer and being satisfied that he is working, I will walk away. Then, 15 minutes later when I look in on him, he will be sleeping right on his keyboard. Even his brothers, who also like to sleep, are getting disgusted with him. I decided to do a little research and found some information on Dr. Greene’s website.

Dr. Greene says that among adolescents sleepiness is a very common complaint. He goes on to say that the most common sleep related disorder among adolescence is daytime sleepiness. The article suggests that the average 13-year-old needs 10 hours of sleep a day. Of course, about the only time a teenager can get that much sleep is on the weekend when they try to catch-up on their sleep.

Some researchers think that the changes that occur during puberty include resetting the internal, biological, sleep timing mechanism. However, the school schedule of most teenagers prevents them from sleeping longer, which results in chronically sleep-deprived adolescents. The researchers say that you cannot just tell your teenager to go to bed earlier because their internal clocks will not let them go to sleep and the result may be alienating the teen.

Dr. Greene suggests adjusting a teen’s sleep schedule by first setting a time when it is natural for the teen to fall asleep and stick to it. Then, move the bedtime earlier in 15-minute increments to allow the body’s circadian rhythm to be reset. Naps must be avoided and the schedule needs to be followed every day of the week. When the teenager wakes up bright lights and exercise will help set the new rhythm.

Photo Credit Julia Fuller 2007