What are the consequences of chronic sleep deprivation on younger people?
The possibility that sleep loss may impair growth and development in children, particularly in adolescence, is only beginning to be the focus of research. There’s no question that children and particularly high school children are amongst the most sleep-deprived segment of the population. Once adolescents are in the pubertal transition, it is normal for them to have a delay in their sleep-onset time. They will tend to have their lively time of the day later and not go to sleep until maybe midnight. But the school hours haven’t changed, and they have to be up at 5:30 and 6 to get the school bus. There is no question that school performance is probably affected by the fact that these high school kids generally haven’t had enough sleep to really be at their best cognitively to absorb the material. Does sleep loss affect adults’ work performance? Oh, yes, definitely. It has been best shown in people who operate vehicles, such as commercial vehicle drivers, truck drivers. Also, in laborator
