Sleep problems during adolescence: Links with daytime functioning

Sleep-wake patterns undergo significant changes during adolescence. The most prominent changes are an increased delay in sleep phase and a reduction in nocturnal sleep time. These changes are caused by different psychosocial and physiological factors. In about ten percent of adolescents, these patterns may develop into a delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS), which is characterized by consistent reported sleep onset times and waking times that are considerably delayed relative to societal demands. Adolescents may suffer from other common sleep problems such as insomnia, which is shortly described in this chapter as well. Other potential medical sleep-related disorders (e.g., sleep disordered breathing, restless leg syndrome, Klein-Levine Syndrome), are not covered in this chapter. The second part of the chapter, describes the negative consequences of adolescents’ chronic insufficient sleep. Sleepiness, poor academic performance and neurobehavioral functioning, emotional difficulties and increased risk taking behavior are all closely related to adolescents’ typical sleep patterns (i.e. decreased nocturnal sleep, irregular sleep-wake schedule, late bedtime and rise time, poor perceived sleep quality). In the conclusion part we will describe among others the main methodological shortcomings of the research in this field with guidelines for healthy sleep in adolescents.