• Question: What is the average amount of sleep a teenager gets per night?

    Asked by anon-188881 to Rachel, Petrina, Emma on 6 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by anon-189082.
    • Photo: Rachel Sharman

      Rachel Sharman answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      Fantastic question! There are a few answers to this!

      There is a group called the National Sleep Foundation who have looked at a lot of the evidence surrounding sleep need and have created sleep duration guidelines for all ages. For teenagers the recommend sleep duration is 8-10 hours although they say that 7 to 8 hours may be sufficient for some. Anything under 7 hours is not recommended.

      We studied 1500 students as part of our Teensleep trial and we found that the average weekday sleep duration was around 7 and a half hours on a weekday night. We also found that, on a weekday 60% of students had sleep below the recommended guidelines. Many other studies around the world are showing the same pattern with teenagers trying to catch up on sleep at the weekend.

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