Childhood Sleep Trouble Linked With Drug Abuse

Study by Maria M. Wong

Maria M. Wong, an associate professor at the Idaho State University, spearheaded a study linking sleep with drug abuse in minors. The study included the participation of three hundred six adolescents, 292 of which were boys and 94 were girls. The information on sleeping trouble and substance use were collected in six fragments. The groupings were based on the age in intervals of three starting on age three and ending on age twenty.

Dr. Wong states that one in every 10 parents has the idea that their children have sleeping problems. These are commonly toddlers, preschoolers, and school-age children.

Results

The results presented that difficulty in sleeping at age three to five results in a higher possibility of sleep problems at age eleven to seventeen. This, in turn, predicts the prevalence of drug-related issues ate age eighteen to twenty-one. Stress in childhood consequences in having problems with inhibiting the proper behavior and impulses in adolescence. In the study, too much tiredness also predicts drinking, driving problems, blackouts, and the like in you adulthood.

However, the doctor noted that this research does not give a direct explanation as to why such relationship is present. She states that sleeping trouble in childhood appears to give direct and indirect effects on eventual drug-related outcome. Their previous work confirmed that these sleep problems were linked with premature onset of drug and alcohol use. This is obviously a risk for succeeding drug and alcohol issues which suggests that these could be visible very early in life.

Wong even enumerated some advice about this relationship. She said that the public should be made aware of the significant effects of sleep problems on children and their possible impact on self-discipline. Intervention and prevention programs on substance abuse should also incorporate the idea of the link of sleeping trouble. Lastly, health care experts and providers must be more aware of the budding consequences of childhood sleep issues and give treatment when these are clinically specified.

The analysis of Timothy Roehrs

Timothy Roehrs, the director of research at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital, says that adults with insomnia and use alcohol or a drug before sleeping for sleeping aid will give an effect to an extent greater than that of a non-insomniac with the same social drinking issue. Initially, the substance does improve their sleep without the negative results. However, the tolerance to these substances grows fast which means that you also have to take in larger amounts and this causes you to enter inside a vicious cycle. While this tolerance becomes stronger, sleep becomes worse and worse.

The bottom line

The bottom line in everything that is indicated here is that sleep is important. It could affect every part of your body ñ emotional, physical, and psychological. Sleep problems in childhood could be carried on in worse forms during adolescence and could even lead to the dreaded drug abuse.