Are you the parent of a teen?

Get that kid to bed by 10!

According to a new study published in the journal, Sleep, parents who enforce earlier bedtimes are doing their teens a big favor.

Why?

Kids who stay up until midnight or later are 24 percent more likely to be depressed and 20 percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts, than teens with bed times of 10 p.m. or earlier.

Dr. James E. Gangwisch and his colleagues of Columbia University Medical Center in New York City made the discovery. According to Dr. Gangwisch, “It’s… a common idea that older adolescents don’t need as much sleep as younger adolescents, but that’s really not true–they still need about 9 hours of sleep at night.” Depression has long been linked to inadequate sleep in both teens and adults. The team’s report verifies this fact and notes the connection could be “bidirectional”-meaning getting too little sleep boosts depression risk, while being depressed makes it harder to sleep.

Gangwisch’s team looked at over 15,000 seventh- through twelfth-graders who, along with their parents, were surveyed in 1994-1996. Fifty-four percent of parents said their teens had to go to bed at 10 p.m. or earlier on school nights. Twenty-one percent set bedtime at 11 p.m., and twenty-five percent allowed their children to stay up until midnight or later. More than two-thirds of the teens said they went to bed when they were supposed to.

Considering the possibility that parents who were stricter about bedtime might have other traits or behaviors that protect their child from depression, the researchers analyzed the relationships between the teens and their parents and then accounted for this in their study.

They found no link between a set bedtime and how much teens felt their parents cared for them, but there was a strong relationship between bedtimes and whether or not the teens felt they got enough sleep. Adding to the importance of getting enough sleep, the team learned that kids who got five hours of sleep nightly or less were seventy-one percent more likely to be depressed, and forty percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts than their peers who got eight or more hours of sleep a night.

“Getting adequate sleep is really important for our mental health as well as being able to focus and have the necessary energy and motivation to do the things we need to do during the day,” Gangwisch noted.

So, parents of teens, take note: Eight or more hours of sleep are vital to your teen’s mental health. Staying up late is not to be considered a privilege, but rather a health risk.

Glenn Close’s nephew, Calen Pick, is diagnosed with schizophrenia. Here, he and his cousin, Close’s daughter Annie Starke, discuss living with the stigma surrounding mental illness.

Additional video and information can be found at www.bringchange2mind.org

Shari and Brandon Staglin share their experiences living with schizophrenia.

For more video and information about mental illness visit www.bringchange2mind.org

Tricia and Karen Callaghan share their experiences  with chronic depression.

Additional video and information available at www.bringchange2mind.org

View additional videos and learn more by going to:

www.bringchange2mind.org

Fighting the stigma of mental illness…

For additional videos and information, go to:

www.bringchange2mind.org

MovE! MOve! MoVe!

As biological organisms we were created to move, not to exist in a sedentary state. Respect the connections between body, mind, emotions and spirit; and understand the fact that a body kept from motion is a body storing negative emotion.

If you move less, you will feel more stress.

Ya gotta move to get it out.

If your job requires that you sit for extended periods of time, get up and stretch periodically. For two or three minutes of every hour, work out the kinks and stiff spots, breathe deeply, walk around your building, release tension and ponder the blessings you enjoy. You’ll feel much better and perform your work more optimally.

Follow this link to About.com for a more detailed description of an easy 2-Minute Stretch Routine.

This is the most recent installment in an ongoing series elaborating on 52 proven stress relievers identified by researchers at Texas Woman’s University.

Small Ideas That Make a Big Difference

Start making a difference.

Every individual can take action to help solve homelessness.

Here are five small things you can start doing now:

Make eye contact: Say hello - greet homeless individuals the same as you would a friend or colleague.

Give small supplies: Instead of money, give Ziploc bags of toiletries, socks, food or grocery coupons. Keep a supply in your car.

Donate clothes: Give your gently worn clothes to a local homeless facility.

Watch your mouth: Don’t call people experiencing homelessness “bums,” “transients,” or even “the homeless.” They are still people first.

Volunteer: Work directly with people experiencing homelessness.

Bust the stigma and share stories: Feeling support and being part of a community is empowering to those struggling with a mental illness. By listening to others or by sharing personal experiences, you help to break the silence that keeps people from being open about their illness.

Special acknowledgment and thanks to TAKE PART- The Soloist.

How to Live a Long, Happy Life

* Be very outgoing.

* Learn how to manage stress.

These two common traits were found in the children of people who lived to 100, and longevity runs in families.

“We have observed that these appear to be really important traits that set the children of centenarians apart from other people the same age who may not age as well,” said Dr. Thomas Perls, director of the New England Centenarian Study at the Boston University School of Medicine. The study focuses on older people and their family members, and has tracked the health of children of centenarians as they age, trying to uncover the common denominators of longevity.

Perls and his colleagues looked at 246 children of those who lived to 100 to see if they, now about age 75, had common personality traits. Five personality traits were identified, evaluated and compared to published norms. They were: Neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.

The researchers found that the offspring of centenarians were more extroverted than the published norms. That means “they are quite social, establish important friendships and view these friendships as ’safety nets,’ ” important sources of help when needed, Perls said.

Those studied scored lower than the norms on neuroticism, which enables them to manage stress very well.

Women in the study also scored high in agreeableness, a trait that leads to more friendships. The men in the study scored no higher in agreeableness than normal, and men and women scored average levels for openness and conscientiousness.

As for the exact relationship between personality and longevity, “we are relying on scientific literature to understand exactly what it means,” Perls said. For instance, he said, it makes sense that scoring lower in neuroticism — and handling stress well — would contribute to a longer life, because stress has been shown in scientific studies to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Other research has found social ties to be important to an older person’s health.

“We really found that the offspring of centenarians, in their 70s and early 80s, are very much following in the footsteps of their parents,” Perls said. “They have 60 percent reduced rates of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.”

But what to do if you aren’t naturally outgoing and aren’t good at handling stress?

You can get better at each.

Not naturally outgoing?

Make a point of trying to be more outgoing. Travel more, engage others in conversations, join groups with common interests, volunteer.

You don’t handle stress well?

Read all of the stress management posts on this and other sites, and figure out what will work for you—then DO IT!

And take the Life Expectancy Calculator at Living to 100.

You may learn some new tricks to improve your quality of life.

*More on this topic can be found online in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Make friends with non-worriers.

Nothing will cause you to worry more frequently or with greater intensity than spending too much time with chronic worrywarts, nay-sayers and fuss-budgets.

Nothing saps your energy more than associating with people who dwell in that faithless, negative state of mind. They’ll suck the joy right out of your life.

Surround yourself with hopeful, optimistic friends. Your life will be much less stressful.

This is the most recent installment in an ongoing series elaborating on 52 proven stress relievers identified by researchers at Texas Woman’s University.