Khaberni - An American study revealed that allowing teenagers and young adults to sleep longer on weekends to compensate for the fatigue of a school or work week helps maintain their mental health and reduces the likelihood of them suffering from depression.
The study conducted by a research team from the University of Oregon found that teenagers and young adults aged between 16 and 24 who sleep more hours on weekends have a 41% reduced likelihood of suffering from certain mental illnesses such as depression.
Researcher Melinda Kasman, a specialist in psychiatry at the University of Oregon, states that "specialists in the field of sleep and physicians always advise that teenagers should obtain between 8 and 10 hours of sleep regularly throughout the week, but this recommendation is not always practical for many teenagers or people in general."
Kasman added in statements transported by the website "SciTech Daily," which specializes in scientific research: "It is natural for teenagers to stay up late, so let them compensate for the lost sleep hours on weekends, because it has benefits and protection for them."
The study published by the Journal of Affective Disorders was based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in the United States, conducted between 2021 and 2023, and included measuring regular sleep periods for teenagers both on weekdays and weekends, monitoring their psychological and emotional state or the emergence of any depression symptoms on them.
Kasman mentioned that depression is among the primary reasons for disability among the age group of 16 to 24 years, and in this context, disability refers to difficulty in performing daily tasks, such as not going to work or being late for appointments and difficulty in taking up the responsibility assigned to the person.
