Research shows the majority of teens do not get the sleep they need every day. So what is keeping students up?

The widespread use of portable devices before bedtime correlates with delayed and/or decreased sleep. Although teens are going to sleep later in the night, they don’t have the opportunity to sleep later in the day due to early high school start times. A recent study found that students with a high school start time between 7-7:29am get 46 minutes less sleep than teens whose start times were 8:30am or later. Those 46 minutes are the difference between getting eight hours of sleep, the minimum recommended by experts, and sleep insufficiency.

Lauren Hale, PhD, of Stony Brook Medicine is a sleep expert available for media interviews and can share healthy sleep tips for teens and adults. If needed, Stony Brook University has access to a ReadyCam television studio system that provides remote access to television networks.

About Lauren Hale, PhD

Lauren Hale, PhD, is a professor of family population and preventive medicine at Stony Brook University’s School of Medicine. She is an expert in the social patterns of sleep and how it contributes to a cycle of inequality in health and well-being. Hale suggests that the results raise concerns about public health and social justice, stating that socioeconomic factors matter for sleep. She is researching what factors affect teenagers for determining how much they sleep and the consequences of their sleep patterns on their physical and mental health. ​Hale is the founding editor-in-chief of the Sleep Health Journal and has published over 65 peer-reviewed articles.