Why teenagers tend to sleep late and longer

Many parents often get frustrated with their ‘lazy’ teenagers, finding it hard to understand why it’s so hard to get them out of bed in the morning. We wonder why they sleep so late on the weekends, and also why it feels like a constant struggle to get them up in time for school. Afterall, they are at an age where they should be quite capable of getting up themselves… right?
 
You might be surprised to learn that teenagers actually have a biological reason for sleeping so long.
 
Our body clocks change throughout our lives and with Adolesence comes a change in the body clock that delays their natural circadian rhythm by 2-3 hours.
 
This leaves with with the tendency to naturally want to go to bed later. It’s no wonder it is hard to get them out of bed for school in the morning when you also factor in the natural need for a longer sleep at that age.
 
The evidence is so strong that many schools in America are now looking at the idea of later school start times for adolescents to ensure their best possible potential for learning. The reasoning is that if the natural circadian rhythm for adolescents is to go to sleep later, but they still are forced to get up early for school, then they are always on the backfoot of learning.
 
If we think about what happens to ourselves when we don’t get the enough sleep then it is easy to argue for the later start times of schools. Even just one sleep deprived night can leave us with lack of focus - making it harder to process and retain information, and make decisions. It also leaves us more prone to picking up a cold, more irritable and more irrational…. sound familiar?
 
 
For more in depth info on this topic I recommend reading this article
http://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/teens-and-sleep