Psychology Researchers Find Sleep Shortage Takes Toll on Middle Schoolers' Self-Esteem and Mental Health

By Anne-Marie Kent

Feelings of depression and low self-esteem plague children as they advance through middle school because they get increasingly less sleep, according to a new study completed by UMass Boston psychology professor Jean Rhodes, Ph.D., with colleagues Katia Fredriksen, Ranjini Reddy, and Niobe Way.

"Sleep clearly played a significant role in predicting depressive symptoms and self-esteem during adolescence," says Rhodes.

Their research is published in the journal Child Development in their January-February issue.

Attempts to improve the health, quality of life, and academic careers of adolescents should consider the importance of a good night's sleep, she says. A grant from the Spencer Foundation supported the study.

"Elevated levels of depression and drops in self-esteem are seen as inevitable hallmarks of adolescence," says Rhodes. "Yet these results suggest that such changes are partially linked to a variable--sleep--that is largely under individual, parental, and even school control." Rhodes stresses that any attempt to improve the quality of life for adolescents and reduce their risk to a range of negative health, academic, and emotional outcomes should consider the importance of a good night's sleep.

The students were asked about the number of hours they slept each night and what grades they received in school. They also answered questionnaires designed to measure depressive symptoms and assess self-worth.

Rhodes and her colleagues found that students who slept fewer hours in the sixth grade had lower self-esteem, higher levels of depressive symptoms, and worse grades than students who got more sleep. During the three years of middle school, they also found a steady decline in the average hours of sleep, which apparently led to declines in self-esteem and grades, and a rise in depressive symptoms.

Girls had a harder time than boys in getting enough sleep, she says. They got more sleep than boys as they started middle school, possibly because girls enter puberty earlier, which creates a greater need for sleep. While levels of sleep dropped for both boys and girls over time, the decline was steeper for girls, Rhodes says.

On average, boys and girls went to bed at the same time. But girls woke up earlier, which other researchers have attributed to longer morning grooming times or a greater burden of household chores compared to boys.

This study has important implications for research and policy, says Rhodes.
The research has received widespread coverage in mainstream media, including NPR's "All Things Considered," the New York Times, ABCNews.com, the Boston Herald, and Scripps Howard News Service.

Image: Katia Fredriksen, a doctoral candidate in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. Program, and Jean Rhodes, professor of psychology, examined the link between sleep and self-esteem in adolescents in their recently published "Sleepless in Chicago: Tracking the Effects of Adolescent Sleep Loss During the Middle School Years." (Photo by Harry Brett)

Go to menu