Stress in Young Adults Linked to Short Sleep Duration

In young adults ages 17 to 24, as stress piles up sleep time decreases. This results in a nasty catch-22 of a lack of sleep that affects daytime mood and a poor daytime mood that affects the ability to sleep.

A study shows that the risk of psychological stress¹ increased 14 percent for each hour of sleep less than eight hours per night. Those who slept less than six hours per night were twice as likely to be stressed-out.

It takes some work to break out of this rut, but the solutions are actually fairly simple:

1) Do some type of vigorous exercise as soon as you get up, even for a few minutes (three to five). Do this even though you are tired. You will notice it will help reset your biological clock as well as help wake you up. This could be jumping jacks, push ups, squats – anything vigorous. Ideally, you would go out for a 45 minute to one hour aerobic session at this time, which really helps move your clock in the right direction.

2) Eat a good breakfast. Plan your day and get going. A small amount of caffeine is OK in the morning, but should be used sparingly, if at all the rest of the day. Avoid or reduce all other stimulants, such as cigarettes. Use B vitamins and other energizing stress support nutrients to sustain your energy (pantethine, acetyl-l-carnitine, carnosine, Q10, magnesium, etc.).

3) Use sleep support nutrition to help you get to sleep at a time that you will get at least seven hours of sleep before you must get up.

4) If problems persist, increase vitamin C and various anti-inflammatory flavonoids (grape seed extract, resveratrol, blueberries, quercetin, etc.).

Once you start sleeping better, maintain this pattern. Avoid staying out late on weekends, because this will undo your new nerve-related programming. Once you are better for a number of months then you can occasionally stay up later. However, staying up late each week as part of a lifestyle is going to make any lasting progress uncertain.