"Almost all high school and college students do not get enough sleep," states Dr. William C. Dement, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Stanford University. "They are at risk for a number of serious consequences, including poor performance at school, increased incidence of automobile accidents, increased moodiness, and increased use of stimulants and alcohol."

A recent National Academy of Sciences forum, entitled The Sleep Needs, Patterns, and Difficulties of Adolescents, looked at teenagers' sleep patterns and found that the nation's teenagers are tired, tired, tired. While teens need around 8 to 9 1/4 hours of sleep per night, surveys show that during the week high school students actually get an average of 7 hours, and 26 percent sleep 6 hours or less per night. Teens have a natural biological clock that make it difficult for them to go to bed before 11 p.m. The result is that they stay up late, get up early, and walk around sleepy all day.

The consequences of teen sleeplessness can be serious. A paper from the National Sleep Foundation observed that sleep deprivation causes increased risk of unintentional injuries and death. Lack of adequate sleep slows reaction time, causes lapses in attention, and exacerbates emotional and behavioral problems. Keeping different sleep schedules on weekends, as many teens do, can also cause fragmented sleep and make it harder for teens to fall asleep at their regular time.

To help teens get enough sleep, experts at the forum recommended later school starting times for high schools and shorter working hours after school. Setting and keeping consistent sleep schedules--going to bed and getting up at about the same time every day--are also important to maintaining mental alertness, the experts say.