WAKE-UP CALL FOR TEENS

Is your teenager staying up too late at night to swat for exams or play computer games? Then shoo him/her off to bed earlier.

A new study has found that teens who make a habit of staying up past midnight risk of depression and suicidal thoughts.

The perfect bedtime is 10pm or earlier. The study found that teens who went to bed after midnight were 24 per cent more likely to be depressed and 20 per cent more likely to seriously contemplate suicide.

Even more important than an early bedtime is the total amount of sleep teens get. Compared with adolescents who reported eight hours of shut-eye each night, those who managed five hours or less were 71 per cent more likely to be depressed and 48 per cent more likely to consider suicide.

Columbia University psychotherapist James Gangwisch and colleagues determined these risks by analysing data collected from 15,659 teenagers as part of the National Longitudinal Study Of Adolescent Health. Overall, 7 per cent were depressed and 13 per cent had seriously contemplated suicide.

The findings were published in the Jan 1 issue of the journal Sleep.