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It is a common stereotype, the teenager who lies in bed well into the morning, long after the rest of the in household has woken up. Teenagers are often reprimanded for being lazy and sleeping in late and it has become second nature for many people to blame them for this. Often teenagers are simply seen as lazy. However, evidence has emerged that frees teenagers from this blame, and it has now been suggested that teenagers do in fact need more sleep than adults –if they are going to bed around the same time as their parents, it stands to reason that they are going to stay in their beds in the morning.
Although adults are likely to be in stressful and tiring jobs, during the day teenagers are much more likely to have to think harder, thus using up vital reserves in the brain and making them more likely than adults to be mentally exhausted by the time they go to bed. The mind as well as the body recharges itself when the person is in bed, and it takes longer for brain cells to do this than it does for the physical body to relax. The strain of constantly thinking throughout the school day means that teenagers’ brains will be exhausted by the time they are home. Often their need to feel ‘adult’ will mean they do not sleep until their parents do, which clearly gives a reason for them to stay in bed in the morning.
As well as this mental exhaustion, the amount of growth that a person goes through in their teenage years means that they are also likely to be physically tired at the end of the day. The combination of growth spurts and increases in hormonal activity suggest that lethargic teens are not lazy, they are simply biologically unable to keep up the same energy levels as children and adults. All this evidence, therefore, leads to a conclusion: teenagers are physically and mentally pushed more than adults, and they should no longer be vilified as being lazy. In fact, helping their sleeping would be advantageous, and ensuring that they have a comfortable bed is therefore very important.