Inside the sleep clinics for teenager 💤 ‘Asking them to get up at 7 is like asking adults to start work at 4pm’ Research found 57% of young people aged 17 to 23 having problems sleeping - but what can be done to help them?
a sharp rise in young people being admitted to hospital for sleep disorders, with admissions for conditions such as insomnia almost doubling in seven years to 2020.
It strikes close to home – in my own family we have experienced sleepless nights in recent years. Although my 16-year-old found her sleep improved during lockdown, she is now struggling again as she started college and returned to post-pandemic life. “I’m exhausted all the time,” she told. “I go to bed at 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock, I put my phone on flight mode, but I’m still awake at two, at three in the morning. And if I do sleep, I keep waking up.
“This is why the market for sleep products is so huge,” explains Dr Hare. “When you’re that desperate, you will spend any amount of money on anything that promises to give you any sort of sleep, even if it’s only a small amount.” The sleep market is expected to be worth $585bn by 2024., there are special pillows, mattresses, eye masks, skincare ranges, bath salts, lavender pillow sprays. There is calming music and wind chimes. But does any of it work? “No,” says Dr Hare.
When I talk to Dr Hare about my child’s patterns of sleep, she suggests, like many, she is not suffering with insomnia – as many parents in a similar situation might presume – but that this is just disrupted sleep because she goes to bed too late, wakes up too early, eats poorly, and spends a lot of time on her devices.
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