A new study has examined the development of mental health problems and resilience among at-risk youth.

It may be considered as one of the most common “sleep aids” people employ to help them drift off at night, but according to a recent study, alcohol can actually be a roadblock to good sleep in teenagers.

The Rutgers University-Camden research linked insomnia to frequency of alcohol use among early adolescents. “Parents, educators, and therapists should consider insomnia to be a risk marker for alcohol use, and alcohol use a risk marker for insomnia, among early adolescents,” wrote researcher Naomi Marmorstein.

Marmorstein examined the associations between alcohol use and four sleep-related issues: initial insomnia; daytime sleepiness; sleep irregularity, defined as the difference in weekday and weekend bedtimes; and disturbed sleep, characterized as nightmares, snoring, sleepwalking, wetting the bed, and talking in sleep.

When sleep problems were found to be associated with frequency of alcohol use, she examined whether symptoms of mental health problems or levels of parental monitoring accounted for these associations. The research focused on seventh- and eighth-grade students participating in the Camden Youth Development Study, an initiative funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. The study examines the development of mental health problems and resilience among at-risk youth.

– Deccan Chronicle

Read more: Alcohol Puts Teens at Risk of Insomnia

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