Sleep and Depression

Remember those curfews that your parents always made you obey when you were a child? Remember when you actually followed those curfews? Well, it turns out parents do know best for their children in this case. Everybody knows that we need sleep. It's an essential part of our daily lives. However, many children do not receive anough sleep because they refuse to go to bed early. Columbia University scientists found that depression was seen 24% more in keeps who sleep at midnight or later than those who sleep by 10 p.m. Understand that sleep is just a factor in depression. Other factors would be the life style of the child, situations of their families, and how they were raised. Sleep itself is not the sole reason of depression, but can be used as a satisfying protection for mental health.

Studies at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the University of California have used brain scans to observe sleep deprived children. They found increased activity in the amygdala, the emotional center of the brain, and decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex, which makes us think rationally. These are seen in people who are depressed. Being aware of this will help teens be aware of factors that may lead to depression. This will hope them improve their mental health.

I'm sure not many of us teenagers really follow a curfew anymore, that is, unless you call sleep towards 2 a.m. or beyond your curfew. Honestly, we grow up, gain independence and our parents can't really enforce us to sleep as they did when we were younger. It's all on us if we decide to listen or not. We should care because it's beneficial to manage how much sleep we get a day. We should make a routine of it. As the article explained, it gives us a form of mental protection and allows us to fend off depression by allowing us to think rationally.

Source: Lite, Jordan. "Less Sleep Linked to Blues in Teens". Scientific American Mind July/August 2010: 10-11.