Sleep duration and mood in adolescents: an experimental study.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: This study examines the relationship between experimentally manipulated sleep duration and mood in adolescents. METHODS: Thirty-four adolescents (20 male), aged 15-17 years, lived in a sleep laboratory for 10 days and 9 nights. They were allocated to one of three sleep "doses" for five consecutive nights for 5, 7.5, or 10 h sleep opportunity per night. Two baseline nights and two recovery nights entailed 10 h sleep opportunity per night. Mood was measured every 3 h during wake using unipolar visual analogue scales measuring the mood states "depressed," "afraid," "angry," "confused," "anxious," "happy," and "energetic." RESULTS: Mixed models analyses with post hoc comparisons revealed that participants in the 5-h group, but not the 7.5- or 10-h groups, reported being significantly more depressed, angry, and confused during sleep restriction than at baseline. Adolescents were significantly less happy and energetic during sleep restricted to 5 h and significantly less energetic during sleep restricted to 7.5 h. When adolescents had 10 h sleep opportunities their happiness significantly increased. No statistically significant effects of sleep restriction were found for fear or anxiety, although small-to-moderate effects of sleep restricted to 5 or 7.5 h were found. Two nights of recovery sleep was not sufficient to recover from increased negative mood states for the 5-h group, although recovery occurred for positive mood states. CONCLUSIONS: Given the prevalence of insufficient sleep and the rising incidence of mood disorders and dysregulation in adolescents, these findings highlight the importance of sufficient sleep to mitigate these risks.

The relationship between sleep duration and mood in adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Insufficient sleep has been argued to result in deleterious changes to mood in adolescents and offers promise as a modifiable risk factor. A systematic review of the literature regarding sleep duration and mood in adolescents was conducted using the academic databases PsycINFO, PubMed, Medline, Scopus, and EMBASE to identify relevant literature. Seventy-four studies, including 361,505 adolescents were sourced out of the 1534 references identified, 73 of which were appropriate for meta-analysis. Pooled results indicated that less sleep was associated with a 55% increase in the likelihood of mood deficits. Positive mood showed the largest relationship with sleep duration, followed by anger, depression, negative affect and anxiety. Effect sizes also varied according to study design, how sleep was operationalised, and geographical region, but not according to the inclusion of covariates. Sleep duration has a significant negative impact on a range of mood states in healthy adolescents. These effects were witnessed across all geographical regions, highlighting that sleep is a universal and modifiable risk factor for preventing mood deficits in this at-risk population.