Young adults who get fewer than eight hours of sleep per night have higher risks of psychological distress, a combination of high levels of depressive and anxious symptoms.
Young adults who get fewer than eight hours of sleep per night have higher risks of psychological distress, a combination of high levels of depressive and anxious symptoms.
Short sleep duration has a range of negative consequences including a hypothesised link with psychological distress, which has yet to be studied. To look into this association, researchers in Australia studied the sleep patterns of 2,937 teenagers. They used average self-reported nightly sleep duration of eight to nine hours as a reference and the participants were made to complete a survey between 12 and 18 months after the baseline survey.
The participants completed a confidential survey, reporting the number of hours slept on both weekday and weekend nights during the past month. Thirty percent of participants slept for seven to eight hours per night, and 18 percent reported sleeping less than seven hours. Fewer than two percent of study subjects had an extremely short sleep duration of less than five hours per night. Psychological distress was assessed using a 10-item screening instrument that evaluates a person's mental health problems during the previous four weeks. It includes questions that ask about feeling tired, nervous, hopeless, restless, depressed, sad and worthless. A high score indicates that a person is likely to be suffering from a mental disorder.
A linear association between sleep durations of less than eight hours and psychological distress was found in young adults aged between 17 and 24 years. The risk of psychological distress increased by 14 percent for each hour of nightly sleep loss, such that those sleeping less than six hours a night were twice as likely to be experiencing distress as average sleepers. In young adults already experiencing distress, the fewer hours they sleep the worse the outcome across the range of sleep hours. Participants without psychological distress at baseline who reported sleeping five hours or less per night were three times more likely to be distressed one year later . A new onset of psychological distress was found in 239 of 1,992 participants (12 percent) who did not report psychological distress at baseline. Persistent psychological distress was found in 419 of 945 respondents (44 percent) who were distressed at baseline.
This study's findings suggest that recent increases in the levels of distress reported by young adults may be related to changes in their sleep patterns and interventions should target young adults who have either current distress or extremely short sleep duration. Potential targets for improving sleep in this age group include delaying school start times and reducing the amount of time at night that young adults spend watching TV, playing video games and using the Internet before going to bed.
Short sleep duration has a range of negative consequences including a hypothesised link with psychological distress, which has yet to be studied. To look into this association, researchers in Australia studied the sleep patterns of 2,937 teenagers. They used average self-reported nightly sleep duration of eight to nine hours as a reference and the participants were made to complete a survey between 12 and 18 months after the baseline survey.
The participants completed a confidential survey, reporting the number of hours slept on both weekday and weekend nights during the past month. Thirty percent of participants slept for seven to eight hours per night, and 18 percent reported sleeping less than seven hours. Fewer than two percent of study subjects had an extremely short sleep duration of less than five hours per night. Psychological distress was assessed using a 10-item screening instrument that evaluates a person's mental health problems during the previous four weeks. It includes questions that ask about feeling tired, nervous, hopeless, restless, depressed, sad and worthless. A high score indicates that a person is likely to be suffering from a mental disorder.
A linear association between sleep durations of less than eight hours and psychological distress was found in young adults aged between 17 and 24 years. The risk of psychological distress increased by 14 percent for each hour of nightly sleep loss, such that those sleeping less than six hours a night were twice as likely to be experiencing distress as average sleepers. In young adults already experiencing distress, the fewer hours they sleep the worse the outcome across the range of sleep hours. Participants without psychological distress at baseline who reported sleeping five hours or less per night were three times more likely to be distressed one year later . A new onset of psychological distress was found in 239 of 1,992 participants (12 percent) who did not report psychological distress at baseline. Persistent psychological distress was found in 419 of 945 respondents (44 percent) who were distressed at baseline.
This study's findings suggest that recent increases in the levels of distress reported by young adults may be related to changes in their sleep patterns and interventions should target young adults who have either current distress or extremely short sleep duration. Potential targets for improving sleep in this age group include delaying school start times and reducing the amount of time at night that young adults spend watching TV, playing video games and using the Internet before going to bed.
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