Adolescent sleep duration is associated with daytime mood

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-06/aaos-asd061516.php

Public Release: 15-Jun-2016
Adolescent sleep duration is associated with daytime mood
Promoting healthy sleep in adolescents could potentially prevent development of more serious mental health problems for some teens
American Academy of Sleep Medicine

A new study of adolescents suggests that obtaining an insufficient amount of sleep increases variability in sadness, anger, energy and feelings of sleepiness. The study also showed that nightly fluctuations in sleep in healthy adolescents predict worse mood the next day, and worse mood any given day largely predicts unusually bad sleep the next night.

Results show that adolescents showed increased variability in sadness, anger, and sleepiness when sleep was restricted compared to when sleep was extended. This effect was not moderated by age, sex, race, or the order in which participants underwent the sleep conditions.

"These results are important because variability in mood and emotional dysregulation can interfere with social, school, and behavioral functioning, and may contribute to the development of more severe psychopathology," said senior author, Dean Beebe, PhD, professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. "The promising aspect of this finding is that sleep can be modified and by promoting healthy sleep we could potentially prevent the development and/or maintenance of more serious mental health problems for some teens."

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