GE B1 Unit 8 Reading Test A

Teenagers and sleep

When reports of research into teenagers’ sleep patterns started to emerge, the results and recommendations were immediately doubted. They were so different to most people’s longheld beliefs that many questioned both the methods researchers had used and the suggestions they made based on the findings. However, there is a growing acceptance that the research was, indeed, correct.

For years, people assumed that teenagers’ unwillingness to go to bed and get up at reasonable times was due to laziness. However, recent research identifi ed that humans’ need for sleep changes as we get older. When the teenage years begin, the times at which we naturally start feeling sleepy and are ready to wake up start getting later. This pattern continues until around twenty years of age, at which point, the times start getting earlier again. At the age of fifty-five, people naturally wake at about the time they did as a child. This is about two hours earlier than teenagers, so a 7.30 alarm actually feels like a 5.30 alarm to a teenager.

Part of the reason is due to chemicals in the body called hormones. The amounts of these grow during the teenage years and slowly reduce again during adulthood. However, there are other factors, including parents these days generally being more relaxed about children’s bedtimes.

Also, as people grow ever busier, the recognition of sleep as something that’s important for health is increasingly ignored. Freer access to electronic equipment such as computers and smartphones also has an effect. Staring at a screen not only helps to keep you awake biologically, but it also replaces some of the time that teenagers (and adults!) previously used for sleep.

Some schools have already changed their hours to fit in with their students’ sleep patterns. Worries that students would use delayed start times to turn up even later have not happened. In fact, the opposite is true, and pass rates in key tests have also gone up. Many other schools are looking to do the same thing, once they’ve obtained the support of parents, who may have to alter their own work patterns to fit in. They may feel better about doing this once they learn about the impressive results obtained so far.