BBC Learning English 
Words in the News  
Sleepy teenagers 
19 April 2012

Teenagers are renowned for enjoying lengthy lie-ins in the morning. But contrary to 
popular belief, their reluctance to get out of bed may not be just down to laziness alone. 
Jenny Hill reports. 
This bedroom is a battleground. Morgan's 17, and like most other teenagers, she 
struggles to surface. 
Noelle Delaney, Mother:
Some days it is very difficult…you know I have to go in there two, three times. I have 
been known to pull her by her feet out of her bed.  
Morgan Delaney, Student:
It's too early to get up in the morning, especially in the winter when it's quite dark out. It 
just seems like you're getting up in the middle of the night, you just want to be back in 
bed. 
And that's why sleep scientists studied Morgan and her friends for two weeks. These 
wrist-mounted sensors monitored their every move – waking and sleeping. 
Analysis of that data surprised the scientists. They found that consistently the 
teenagers get just six and a half hours sleep a night. Most adults need at least eight. 
When the clocks moved forward to British Summer Time the youngsters got even less 
– just six hours a night.  
Joanne Bower, University of Surrey:
You've got something inside you called your circadian rhythm [body clock] which insures 
the same thing happens the same time every day and one of those things is the 
secretion of melatonin which is the hormone that makes you sleepy. Now for an adult 
you expect that to be early evening, in teenagers it happens much later so even if you 
put your teenager in bed at say ten at night it may be that they don't secrete their 
melatonin until midnight, one o'clock, so they're staring at the ceiling just not sleepy. 
   
Consistent sleep deprivation can affect concentration, memory or even mood. The 
scientists behind this study say more research is needed because, like Morgan, most 
teenagers have busy lives - what they're not getting is enough rest. 



Vocabulary and definitions
battleground -------------a place where conflicts or fights take place 
to surface ---------------to wake up
sensors -----------------devices that can recognise movement 
monitored --------------watched or checked
analysis -----------------detailed study  
consistently--------------repeatedly
British Summer Time-----------a time zone in the UK where clocks are put forward 
                                                by an hour in summer to make the most of the 
                                                daylight hours
secretion-----------------------the process by which a liquid or a chemical is 
                                                released by the body
hormone ----------------------a chemical produced in the body that influences how 
                                               the cells and tissue function
sleep deprivation --------------lack of enough sleep



More about a related topic: 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17755357