We offer counseling services to patients of all ages. Whether you are suffering from anxiety, depression, addiction, or any other kind of mental illness, we can help you through it. For more info, please see our website, where we explain everything you need to know about our child therapy Westchester NY services.
Are you a parent to a child who tends to struggle to fall asleep at night? Well, as you may have guessed, you’re not alone. Insomnia seems to be a spreading illness in youth. You can blame their smartphones in part. And of course, you surely already know that a sleepless night means a cranky child the next day. And that’s never any fun for anyone. But, over time, some parents can grow used to it. What these parents don’t know is the fact that those sleepless night may have much more serious implications than a whiney kid in the morning. It may also be a precursor to depression and anxiety later on in life.
Study 1: What Happened After 2 Days Without Sleep?
A recent study showed that after only two nights of poor sleep, children showed signs of diminishing the ability to remember details that they normally would have been able to recall. They also showed sluggishness, which translated to less joy from activities that they had previously thought were fun. The results from this study led researchers to speculate that lack of sleep in the long term could lead to much more severe problems, such as depression and a lack of passion towards life.
Study 2: Sleep Deprivation Has Negative Impact On Common Social Skills
A study reportedly published in Sleep Medicine Reviews found that children and young people who lacked sleep struggled in a number of areas pertaining to human communication. For example, they had a harder time picking up on nonverbal social cues and reading the body language of the people with whom they were speaking. They also seemed to have a more difficult time than other children with assessing and regulating their own behavior based on the surrounding circumstances.
How Underdeveloped Social Skills Early In Life Turn Into Depression Later
Adolescence is a confusing time in a child’s life. It is when hormones rush in, while simultaneously the child has to navigate a new and unfamiliar social climate. In order to make it through this phase of life and arrive on the other side healthy and unscathed, the child must have developed his or her social skills earlier in life. But children who have been losing sleep since they were babies do not have these skills, which makes the adolescent years significantly harder to manage. This, in turn, can turn into depression when left unchecked.
If you are concerned that your child may be showing signs of depression of anxiety, you can count on the Counseling Center to help your child through this difficult time. We specialize in group and individual adult and child therapy Westchester NY services. You can reach us on our website or by calling us at (914) 793-3388.
