Get the Kids to Bed: A Longitudinal Study Correlates Sleep to Wellness in Adolescents
A recent study conducted among adolescents in Norway and Switzerland made an important connection between the duration of sleep received, and one’s psychological well-being. Researchers at the University of Basel wanted to find out if decreased sleep duration in adolescents is a good predictor of lower subjective psychological across the span of one year. The article draws from the knowledge base of sleep studies associating longer sleep with a greater sense of well-being. It adds to that knowledge by studying the effects of reduced sleep over a long term with a large sample size.
Eight hundred eighty-six adolescents from Switzerland and seven hundred fifteen adolescents in Norway were asked to report the time they had gone to bed and time they had woken up on a day in May of 2012, 6 months later in November, and again the following May. This was done during a public school lesson and followed with a series of surveys given to assess subjective psychological well-being (SPW).
The researchers analyzed the by splitting them into groups and correlating each group’s sleep duration scores with their SPW scores. There were three age groups per country: 10-11 year olds, 12-13 year olds and 14-15 year olds. The sleep durations of the six total groups were correlated with subjective psychological well being scores at the three times data were measured (May 2012, November 2012 and March 2013). There were a total of 18 resulting correlations, one correlation for each of the three age groups, in each country, at each data collection wave.
The authors argue that adolescents who get more sleep have a higher sense of well-being. Although sixteen of the eighteen groups exhibited a statistically significant positive relationship between sleep duration and well-being, the size of the correlation was quite small. This suggests that although sleep is definitely important, it’s not a paramount predictor of well being. Additionally, pre-bed-time behaviors which influence sleep quality have been shown to be an important predictor of well being, yet the authors neglected test for this variable. Also, instead of attempting to derive causality by using SPW at a given time as a predictor of sleep, the study should implement an experimental design which increases sleep and measures SPW for further research. This would likely have to be done with a smaller sample size but would serve as an excellent supplement if similar age groups and sampling regions are used.
Although the study had its shortcomings, this is often the case among scientific research and the findings of this study have important implications. Is sleep undervalued in modern society? If we know that sleeping more causes adolescents to feel better about themselves, should we provide more education in public schools on the benefits of increased sleep? Moving forward it’s probably best to keep these benefits in mind and use them to guide decisions in parenting and education. May the next generation of adolescents rest well so we develop a population of healthy, mentally strong young adults.
