Professor Rachael Taylor and Dr Rosie Jackson have been awarded a Marsden Fund grant from Te Apārangi Royal Society of New Zealand to progress their ground-breaking sleep research.
Professor Taylor is Director of the Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre (EDOR) and Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Rosie Jackson completed her PhD in the Centre pioneering new sleep research methodologies.
Over the last decade, the EDOR sleep research team have developed objective methods to measure sleep in children and youth, including the use of body cameras. The results are uncovering some surprising findings.
In recently published research, their results did not support the widely-held view that using screens, exercising and eating in the hour before bed was detrimental for sleep. They plan to further investigate some of these findings in their new study.
The team's funded Marsden project, ‘Tik-tok to Top Gun: are screens before bed really a problem for sleep in adolescents?’ will provide objective evidence to inform more effective health policy and improve the health and wellbeing of our teenagers.
Marsden Fund project details
Professor Rachael Taylor and Dr Rosie Jackson
Tik-tok to Top Gun: are screens before bed really a problem for sleep in adolescents?
$853,000
Although everyone knows the importance of a good night’s kip, many teens are chronically sleep deprived, with detrimental effects on health, wellbeing, education and daily functioning. In New Zealand and abroad, health guidelines endorse avoiding electronic media immediately prior to bed to promote good sleep. Two problems are evident with this guidance: 1) it is unrealistic, as evidenced by almost non-existent adherence, and 2) it is based on weak correlational data from questionnaires, which are unlikely to capture the complexity of modern screen usage.
Instead, experimental data using objective, accurate measures of screen use is needed to show how device use might truly impact sleep. Sleep outcomes will be measured using accelerometers in 80 youth (11-16 years) on nights when they have spent the hour before sleep undertaking passive (watching) or interactive (gaming, multitasking) screen time compared to nights where screens are not used. Synchronized assessment of heart rate and anxiety will improve understanding of interrelationships with physiological and psychological influences.
This work will help guide those developing tech solutions to improve sleep and more effective health policy. Enhanced teen sleep will improve physical and mental health, school attendance and educational outcomes, with flow-on benefits for productivity and economic growth.
