Who would have thought a teenager's mobile phone could help them manage their mental health by supporting a good night's sleep? A new app aimed at 12-to 16-year-olds is showing strong early results, improving both the hours of sleep and reducing depression and anxiety.
Sleep Ninja, a free app created by a mental health research organization—the Black Dog Institute, has shown significant early results in improving teenagers' sleep patterns(模式), so critical not just for school readiness but for overall good mental health, co-creator Aliza Werner-Seidler said.
"Adolescents(青少年) struggle to get the recommended 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night," Dr Werner-Seidler, a clinical psychologist, said. "As a result, approximately 40 percent of all young people will experience a significant sleep problem by early high school which heightens their risk of mental ill-health, which is a risk factor for a range of disorders including depression and anxiety."
Those using the app nominate a time to be up in the morning to make it to school or other activities. From there, it work backwards, determining when they should be in bed. The app gives an alert to start a pre-bed routine, which launches at least an hour before bed time. Part of that routine is to put the phone and other devices away, and engage in behaviors more suitable to sleep. Some of this is simply to have a shower, clean teeth, read a book. But the app also offers a form of practical tips to help them establish sleep routines, things like how to set up their bedroom, what to do during the day to improve their chances of sleep and how to reduce those negative repetitive thoughts that come in at night.
Dr Werner-Seidler said Sleep Ninja was the only such app designed specifically for adolescents, and the results so far had been very encouraging. She added that we also saw rate s of depression drop from 77 percent at the start of the study to 44 percent after using the app.
