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11 percent of teens in the U.S. develop depression by the time they are 18. According to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, lack of sleep and time spent online can increase those risk. 

From NPR:

Teenagers who don’t get enough sleep are four times as likely to develop major depressive disorder as their peers who sleep more, according to researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. They tracked the habits of more than 4,000 adolescents over a year.

And already depressed teens were four times as likely to lose sleep. “That’s a pretty strong reciprocal relationship,” says behavioral scientist Robert Roberts, the study’s lead author. […]

In a second study, researchers in Sweden found that lack of sleep and excessive media use were associated with mental health problems in teens. The researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm collected data from over 12,000 European adolescents. They were looking for behaviors that were most associated with depression and suicide in teens.

Read more at NPR

Researchers recommend that parents monitor the sleeping patterns of their children, by putting them to bed at a regular time.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends nine to 10 hours of sleep for teens, but 70 percent of high schoolers do not meet that requirement.

What do you think of the study’s findings?

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