In today's 6 For Your Health headlines... any parent of a teenager knows they like their sleep. Federal guidelines recommend teens get 9 hours a night but a new study suggests... maybe not. The findings say more sleep can actually hurt your teen's grades. Nkoyo Iyamba has more.
Conventional wisdom says a teenager who gets more sleep would probably get better grades and do well in school.
So we decided to ask the experts:
"I'm really tired a lot so I need a lot of sleep."
"I probably get like 10 hours of sleep... like 9 or 10."
These high school students we talked to said they'd prefer more sleep but only average about:
"Probably 6 or 7."
"I probably sleep like 6 or 7 hours."
"I get about 6, 7 hours of sleep."
And that's actually the optimum amount of sleep a teenager needs, according to study author Eric Eide.
Eric Eide - Brigham Young University: "So when they read our study and find out that 7 hours is really fine then that makes them feel better about their teenagers sleep patterns."
"Really? That's kind of shocking to me."
Rebecca Richardson - high school teacher: "I think that my experience is more often than not is seeing sleep deprived students with their heads on desks who look as though they need a little bit of cold water on their face."
This study is the first to analyze the school performance of teens, and it looked at over 1,700 students.
Some students say they'd like more sleep but they agree with the study.
Daniel Ponce - high school student: "I feel like I perform less when I get more sleep because I become like lazy and I don't want to do anything and I got all my rest. But when I'm tired I feel like doing something else and not get tired at all."
But there are still some skeptics:
Ciera Washington - high school student: "I definitely perform better if I get more sleep, like if I get less sleep, I'm dead in the morning and I'm dreading the entire day. I definitely do better with more sleep."
"If I got like 8 hours, I think I'd be pumped for tests."
