Sleep Deprived Teens Suffer Mentally & Physically - How To Help

Sleep deprivation in teens has reached epidemic proportions, with potentially deadly consequences.⁣
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Sleep issues are connected to so many of the issues patients present with in my practice, and that’s especially true for teens. As a parent and professional I see the very real problems and challenges around teens not getting enough sleep at night.⁣
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Research backs this up, and shows that teens who don’t get enough sleep (which is 80% of them) are at higher risk of everything from mental health and metabolic disorders, to substance use and involvement with the law. Even things like risk of car accidents and associated deaths are higher when teens don’t get enough sleep!⁣
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Too many people are unaware that sleep is such a critical driver of symptoms and issues in teens. We need to understand what’s happening developmentally around sleep and wake cycles during adolescence, and then take specific steps to support kids so they can be healthier and function better.⁣
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One of the most impactful things we can do is to move start times later for secondary schools. Why do we insist that teens start school at 7:00 AM (or sometimes earlier) when this is not only incompatible with their developmental stage - but also puts them at risk for all kinds of health problems and risky behaviors?!⁣
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The schools/communities that have experimented with later start times have seen excellent results. All schools should be doing this, and that’s one of the things my podcast guest this week Lisa Lewis @lewislisal and I discuss during the episode. As a parent and journalist, Lisa has been involved with this issue for a while now. She played a key role in leading the effort for the state of California to adopt later secondary school start times, and shares the steps they took to make that happen. ⁣
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This episode is a must-listen for every parent, child-focused professional, and policy-maker. ⁣
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RESOURCES & LINKS:
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Life Will Get Better [Book] - www.drbeurkens...
Dr. Nicole Beurkens [Website] - www.drbeurkens...
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