Poor Sleep Tied to Self-Harm Among Teens

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

Teenagers who get poor sleep are more likely to harm themselves on purpose, a new study says.

Shorter sleep, going to sleep later and frequent waking during the night all were significantly associated with a 14-year-old’s risk of self-harm, researchers report in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

This risk remained elevated even as teens turned 17, researchers noted.

“While this is clearly an unfavorable relationship, one positive from this research is that sleep is a modifiable risk factor — we can actually do something about it,” lead researcher Michaela Pawley, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Warwick in the U.K., said in a news release.

As many as 70% of teenagers get inadequate sleep, researchers said in background notes.

Meanwhile, rates of self-harm among young people are increasing, researchers said.

To see if the two were connected, researchers analyzed data from more than 10,000 14-year-olds participating in a long-term health study of U.K. residents born between 2000 and 2002.

“We discovered that shorter sleep on school days, longer time to fall asleep and more frequent night awakenings at age 14 associated with self-harm concurrently and three years later at age 17,” Pawley said.

“Knowing that poor and fragmented sleep is often a marker preceding or co-occurring with suicidal thoughts and behavior, it gives us a useful focus for risk monitoring and early prevention,” Tang said.

Researchers said future study should investigate whether promoting better sleep through cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia might provide protection against self-harm.

Source: HealthDay
https://www.healthday.com/health-news/child-health/poor-sleep-tied-to-self-harm-among-teens