When people think about the world’s “sleep epidemic” they think about adults across the world who aren’t achieving the magical 8 hours of sleep.

Yet many parents would argue how tough it is to put one foot in front of the other when their baby is waking them multiple times through the night.

But I’m here to say that after 20 years of conducting sleep science and treating sleep disorders across the lifespan - the most sleep deprived age group are teenagers (Gradisar et al., 2011).

Teens throughout the world are constantly missing out on crucial sleep every school week.

And the weekend is not long enough to recover that lost sleep. Even if weekends were 3 days long (Ong et al., 2016)

So this blog is about 2 powerful things that can be done to dent the “Teen Sleep Epidemic” …

Preventing Teen Sleep Problems

If you are the parent of an up and coming teenager - one of the best things you can do is set them a bedtime … for as long as you can!

In 2012 we published a study (led by the awesome Dr Michelle Short) titled “Time for Bed: Parent-Set Bedtimes Associated with Improved Sleep and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents.”

We found that of the 385 adolescents we surveyed:

• 17% had a bedtime set by their parents,

• Very few adolescents had a bedtime set by their parents for the weekends,

• Teens who had a parent-set bedtime got more sleep and better daytime performance,

• The teens who had a parent-set bedtime were more likely to be younger.

3 years later we ran an even bigger study (led by the awesome Dr Kate Bartel), where we analysed the data of over 80,000 adolescents from numerous studies published over the years.

Whilst many people wrongly tout that technology use is to blame for the Rise of Teen Sleep Problems (sounds like a movie title, hey?) - we found that other factors were more influential.

And one factor was a Parent-Set Bedtime.

The data show that many parents stop setting a bedtime for their teen when they turn 14 years old. And at 15 years of age, it’s rare for a teen to have their bedtime set by their parent.

And it’s during these years - the middle of adolescence - when we see the strong rise in teen sleep problems!

Moral of the Story? (Part 1):

• Set a bedtime during the school week for your young teenager that is individualised for them (ie, it might be different to their friends, or the bedtime their sibling had). Doing so will not only protect their sleep, but their daytime functioning, mood and potentially suicidal thinking.

• Still set a bedtime on the weekend, but just set it a bit later.

• Each year they get older, shift their bedtime a bit later - both during the school week and on weekends. Biologically, they become more alert as they age, so their bedtime needs to adapt.

• Keep setting their bedtime for as many years as possible. Indeed, if you manage to set their bedtime throughout their 15th year on this Earth - then you’ve done far more than most parents.

But there comes a time when we need to ‘take their bicycle training wheels off’ - and allow them the autonomy they so desperately desire.

So when it’s time to say goodnight to the Parent-Set Bedtime - and a teenager starts developing a sleep problem - what can be done?

Treating Teen Sleep Problems

When I began my career I was asked what was THE research study that I wanted to do.

The answer was that I wanted to develop and evaluate a sleep treatment for teenagers.

6 years later, that study got published in the best sleep journal in the world … and THAT research study has opened doors over the past decade. Leading to a gazillion calories (ie, energy) spent training health professional across Australia and the World at various workshops and conferences.

And with the massive help of Dr Cele Richardson, we were able to learn so much more about the treatment of teenagers’ sleep.

We’ve learned how treating sleep helps their depression symptoms and negative thinking (Richardson et al., 2021), associated insomnia symptoms (Richardson et al., 2019), and their cognitive performance (Richardson et al., 2018).

And now WINK will teach 1000s of people around the world to do what we’ve been doing.

Helping teenagers to:

• fall asleep earlier, faster, getting more sleep,

• waking up more alert, eating breakfast, muttering more than one word in the morning,

• and showing their parents their personality again.

Moral of the Story? (Part 2):

Our Treating Teen Sleep Problems course is based upon our knowledge and experience of over 75 scientific publications about adolescent sleep and almost 20 years of helping teenagers sleep better.

I cannot think of a better way to learn how to help the most sleep deprived age group.

But enough from me - take a look at our sneak peak of Treating Teen Sleep Problems on Youtube.

Right now, we have an introductory offer for this state-of-the-art course at $997 - because when we roll over to 2022 - the standard price will change to $1997.

So please grab it while you can. Because whilst we can help teens wind back their body clock, in 2022 we can’t roll back the clock to 2021 prices.

Check our certified online course - Treating Teen Sleep Problems …

• Prof MG

p.s. If you’re a parent of a teen, use can learn the skills in this course to get your teen moving towards healthier sleep.