Teenagers Suffer From Insomnia Because Their Rooms Are Smelly, Expert Says

How a teenager's bedroom smells plays a significant role in their sleep deprivation, which also affects their General Certificate of Secondary Education or GCSE results. Colin Espie, a professor of sleep medicine at Oxford University, shared that teenagers will be educated on bedroom hygiene as part of a research about insomnia among young individuals.

According to The Sun, Espie said that youngsters, whose rooms are not ventilated, usually do not open their windows. The reason why a teenager's room is smelly is because it is full of rebreathed air, which has high concentrations of nitrogen and low concentrations of oxygen.

She explained that anyone who rebreathes the same air in a room, which is hot and not ventilated, will always wake up with a headache because of a poor night's sleep. One of the sleep lessons will inform teenagers of the importance of opening their windows and making the heat lower to improve sleep quality.

The University of Oxford plans to keep track of almost 32,000 GCSE students in more than 100 hundred schools for one year. This is to help assess whether starting school a little bit later in the day will lead to higher grades.

The Mirror reports that pupils will be split into two groups. One group will start classes at 10 a.m. while another will follow the normal time. Both groups will be attending sleep classes and will be assessed before and after the trial.

Participating students are advised to refrain from using smartphones and tablets as they contribute to sleep deprivation due to the light that affects the release of melatonin in the body -- an important hormone which helps regulate the sleep cycle. They are also asked to clean and make their rooms as dark as possible.

Espie explained that what they're doing is not therapy. They are simply teaching teens to take responsibility for the quality of sleep they get. A recent research revealed that teens are only fully awake at about 9 to 10 a.m., two to four hours later than most adults and learn the most during afternoons.