If teenagers abuse drugs, they are more likely to stay up late with friends and become sleep-deprived. Now a new study from the University of California at San Diego finds the opposite can be true: sleep deprivation causes teenagers to have behavioral problems and fewer inhibitions, which in turn leads to drug abuse.

• Professor Sara Mednick and her team used research from the United States National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health based on questionnaires of 8350 teenagers over an eight-year period.
• They found large clusters of teenagers in social networks in which it was common to use drugs and sleep fewer than seven hours a night.
  
• Teenagers who had friends who used marijuana were twice as likely to use it themselves.

Previous studies have shown that behaviors such as smoking, drinking, weight gain, depression and happiness are "socially contagious" and spread through social networks.

"It really means that were all connected," Dr. Mednick said. "All of our behaviors lead to other behaviors, and when we think about treating one issue in isolation, we're missing the point that treating an entire milieu is probably more effective."

Labels: drug use, deprivation, sleep

Posted By: Aspen/CRC