Doctors weigh in on teen sleep as Daylight Saving Time returns Sunday

Spring forward this weekend, docs weigh in on teen sleep

 Sunday is Daylight Saving Time. It's going to cost us an hour of sleep.  And every time this happens, there's a debate.  Kasey Chronis has more on one group feeling the impact. 

CHICAGO - Daylight Saving Time returns this Sunday, costing us an hour of sleep — a change that sparks debate each year.

This weekend could be challenging for teens in particular, as new research shows many of them are already running on too little sleep.

What we know:

As the clocks spring forward this weekend, experts say it can trigger "social jetlag" — especially for teens who are already sleep-deprived.

"You're still in Central Time physically, and you're lacking all these external cues that help you realign your sleep and wake cycle with your environment," said Dr. Irina Trosman, attending physician of sleep medicine at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. 

A study released this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) sampled more than 120,000 high school students over more than 15 years.

It shows more than 75 percent of those students reported getting less than seven hours of sleep per night. Even more alarming, a quarter of the teens polled said they're only clocking about five hours.

"Our teenagers need somewhere between eight to 10 hours of sleep. As adults, we need a little bit less — somewhere between seven to nine hours. And the reasons for this are twofold. One is, teens are hardwired to be night owls, so it's hard for them in general, biologically, to go to sleep before 11 p.m. Compounded with that, the school start times are so early for our teenagers," said Dr. Lindsay McCullough, a sleep medicine physician at Rush University Medical Center. 

Researchers found that insufficient sleep was more strongly linked to anxiety and depression than to social media use and screen time. Although, local experts say that can still play a role.

They also say this weekend is a good opportunity to talk to your children and teens about healthy sleep habits.

"It's not to scold or to punish the kids. They're doing the best they can, oftentimes, but just to focus on well-being," said Dr. Mark Loafman, chair of Family and Community Medicine at Cook County Health. "Sleep is really critical for emotional well-being. It even helps our mental health."

Dig deeper:

Overwhelmingly, the doctors FOX Chicago interviewed from Rush, Cook County Health, and Lurie Children’s say the science shows school start times are generally too early — and that Illinois should consider making a change. 

"The school start times tend not to correlate very well with their biological sleep rhythms," Loafman said. 

"That, unfortunately, has been very rigid with only one state in the country, California, actually enforcing a later start time at 8:30, which has been proven to be beneficial," Trosman added. 

"The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics have been advocating for a long time to delay middle school and high school start times to no earlier than 8:30 in the morning to allow teens to get sleep," McCullough explained. 

What's next:

Some Illinois lawmakers are looking to end clock changes.

The latest bill, introduced last month, would adopt permanent standard time — but only if Iowa and Missouri agree to do the same.

For now, clocks jump ahead at 2 a.m. on Sunday. Some devices, like microwaves or ovens, may need to be reset manually, but most smartphones should update automatically.