Generation Sleepless

Why Tweens and Teens Aren't Sleeping Enough and How We Can Help Them

If you could protect your teen from unnecessary anxiety, depression, and chronic stress, and foster a greater sense of happiness and well-being in their life, wouldn’t you? In Generation Sleepless, the authors of the classic guide to helping babies and young children develop healthy sleep habits The Happy Sleeper uncover one of the greatest threats to our teenagers’ physical and mental health: sleep deprivation. Caught in a perfect storm of omnipresent screens, academic overload, night owl biology and early school start times, Generation Sleepless illustrates how our teens are operating in a constant state of sleep debt and "social jet lag" while struggling to meet the demands of adolescence.

In this essential book, Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright draw on the latest scientific research to reveal that, at a critical phase of development, many teens need more sleep than their younger siblings, but they're getting drastically less. Then, they offer tips for parents, including how to foster a teen's self-motivation for sleeping well; how to alter family practices around phones, social media, and screen time; how to draw on an understanding of teens' night owl tendencies to create smart sleep habits; and how to lay out steps for sleep-friendly schools and promoting systemic changes that help teens get the rest they need. Generation Sleepless is an intimate glimpse inside a silent epidemic that is harming teens and how parents can help them reclaim the restorative power of sleep.