#46 - THE Guide to Helping Teens Sleep
When I was on the verge of becoming a teenager I was bullied.
And I didn’t sleep well as a teenager - (do you recall your sleep when you were a teen? post it n the comments below - I’ll start the ball rolling..)
Fortunately, the two statements above weren’t related.
The bullying was a pre-emptive strike. It was believed I would brag about winning a breakdance competition (kids, hey?).
Ever since then, I’ve carried a monkey on my back. There’s that secret voice warning me not to boast; not to sell myself.
Well, maybe that voice helped me keep my head down and bum up, and got me through 4 university degrees (I guess that was an implicit brag, but there’s a different point I’m trying to make...)
By doing science degrees, I learned the value of supporting what you say with facts.
Teen WINK
When we started WINK our first product was Teen WINK. Here’s the facts - it’s:
Clinically proven - collagen products on TV are allowed to say this, so we can too, right? We have 19 scientific publications on the assessment and/or treatment of the delayed sleep pattern we see in teens. This means, we have more scientific publications on this topic than anyone else in the world (meaning others ‘photocopy’ what we do).
Developed by adolescent sleep scientists - at last count, we have 56 scientific publications with the word ‘adolescent’ in the title (that’s not including studies where we analysed adolescent sleep data - like this one).
Developed by adolescent sleep psychologists - we’ve continuously been treating teenagers with sleep problems before the iPhone came out.
There’s a bunch of guides out there to help teens with their sleep.
Because of the facts listed above - Teen WINK isn’t just A guide - it’s THE guide.
Although it’s designed for health professionals - we’ve found parents learn it and help their teen.
What is Teen Wink?
We’re revamping Teen WINK - here’s what it looks like:
Module 1 - How to Assess Teen Sleep Problems
Module 2 - Diagnosis + Bright Light Therapy
Module 3 - Melatonin + Chronotherapy
Module 4 - Motivational Interviewing + Session-by-Session Video
Purchasing all 4 modules grants access to a 1-hr live Q&A webinar with Prof Gradisar, where he discusses cases (anonymously) and you get to ask him questions.
The Webinar then opens access to our Exam and Final Certification.
The Certificate of Completion means you’ll have a fact that you’ve been trained to treat teen sleep problems by the world’s best people.
You’ll be part of an exclusive group of people in the world.
Best of all, treating teen problems will be made so much easier for you and the families you see.
But Teen WINK isn’t just for teens …
This month saw us publish our latest study on delayed sleep patterns.
But this time it was looking at this sleep problem in University students.
Over 50,000 Norwegian university students to be exact …
Of interest to me was that the prevalence of this problem (ie, how common it is) was virtually the same that we see in teenagers.
The sleep of almost 2,000 of these students was so bad - they qualified for a sleep disorder.
Besides have issues with their sleep, uni students with delayed sleep also reported:
worse mental health
greater use of alcohol
reduce positive feelings, and
worse quality of life (amongst others).
From Siversten et al. (2020) in the journal Sleep Medicine.
We’ve measured the mental health of teenagers before and after the treatments contained in Teen WINK, and there’s a reliable decrease in their depression symptoms.
You can download and read the new study here - and why not have a look at Module 1 of Teen WINK - it’s just 9 bucks!
That’s a couple of coffees, right?
Prof Mike Gradisar