Cotcha Yankinov
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2015
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"A possible link between adolescent sleep habits and early substance abuse has been identified by researchers. The study found that both sleep duration and sleep quality during late childhood predict alcohol and cannabis use later in adolescence.
"Treating problems with drugs and alcohol once they exist and preventing them can be challenging, and we are always looking for modifiable risk factors," said Brant P. Hasler, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology, and lead author of the study. "Doing what we can to ensure sufficient sleep duration and improve sleep quality during late childhood may have benefits in terms of reducing the use of these substances later in life."
Researchers analyzed 186 boys from western Pennsylvania whose mothers completed the Child Sleep Questionnaire as part of a larger longitudinal study of low-income boys examining factors associated with vulnerability and resilience. Based on questionnaire results from when the boys were 11 years old, their sleep time and sleep quality were calculated. At ages 20 and 22, the young men were interviewed about lifetime cannabis and alcohol use.
After accounting for race, socioeconomic problems, neighborhood danger, self-regulation, and internalizing and externalizing problems, both sleep duration and sleep quality at age 11 were associated with early substance use throughout adolescence.
The study participants who slept the least, compared to the participants who slept the most, were more likely to report earlier use, intoxication and repeated use of both alcohol and cannabis. Every hour less of sleep at age 11 was associated with a 20 percent acceleration to the first use of alcohol and/or cannabis, Dr. Hasler added.
Worse sleep quality was associated with earlier alcohol use, intoxication and repeated use. Worse sleep quality was associated with earlier cannabis intoxication and repeated use, but not first use.
"After considering other possible influences, we were able to determine that sleep problems are preceding the substance use problems," Dr. Hasler added. "Addressing sleep may now be something we can add into the package of our substance abuse prevention and treatment efforts.""
Does Hasler imply that it is clear that the poor sleep is actually causing the increased drug use? Not that I doubt that assumption, but I don't understand how you would control for factors in a way that you could clearly prove that assumption scientifically without showing that treating the sleep issues lessens drug use, or the inverse. And an intervention that ONLY effects sleep doesn't exist - any intervention, pharmacological or more psychological (teaching meditation etc) is going to have effects that escape nighttime, and could differentially interact with the insomnia and control subjects regardless of effects on sleep.
For example, meditation could be much more beneficial for the insomnia group of kids regardless of effects on sleep if the kids have insomnia from neuropathology, and if meditation is good for neuropathology. So will we ever really know for 100% sure that it's the insomnia causing the increases drug use? It could be (for example) that ASD causes insomnia and it ends up being the ASD that both keeps the child awake AND drives drug use, and teaching the kid to meditate just to sleep better at night might improve daytime mindfulness so you couldn't separate the beneficial effects of increased sleep from the beneficial effects of mindfulness during the day. Just playing devils advocate though, I'm sure that the daytime consequences of having not slept are driving drug use to a fair degree. I just can't think of any actual way to prove it.
Brant P. Hasler. The hazards of bad sleep—Sleep duration and quality as predictors of adolescent alcohol and cannabis use. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.08.009
"Treating problems with drugs and alcohol once they exist and preventing them can be challenging, and we are always looking for modifiable risk factors," said Brant P. Hasler, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and psychology, and lead author of the study. "Doing what we can to ensure sufficient sleep duration and improve sleep quality during late childhood may have benefits in terms of reducing the use of these substances later in life."
Researchers analyzed 186 boys from western Pennsylvania whose mothers completed the Child Sleep Questionnaire as part of a larger longitudinal study of low-income boys examining factors associated with vulnerability and resilience. Based on questionnaire results from when the boys were 11 years old, their sleep time and sleep quality were calculated. At ages 20 and 22, the young men were interviewed about lifetime cannabis and alcohol use.
After accounting for race, socioeconomic problems, neighborhood danger, self-regulation, and internalizing and externalizing problems, both sleep duration and sleep quality at age 11 were associated with early substance use throughout adolescence.
The study participants who slept the least, compared to the participants who slept the most, were more likely to report earlier use, intoxication and repeated use of both alcohol and cannabis. Every hour less of sleep at age 11 was associated with a 20 percent acceleration to the first use of alcohol and/or cannabis, Dr. Hasler added.
Worse sleep quality was associated with earlier alcohol use, intoxication and repeated use. Worse sleep quality was associated with earlier cannabis intoxication and repeated use, but not first use.
"After considering other possible influences, we were able to determine that sleep problems are preceding the substance use problems," Dr. Hasler added. "Addressing sleep may now be something we can add into the package of our substance abuse prevention and treatment efforts.""
Does Hasler imply that it is clear that the poor sleep is actually causing the increased drug use? Not that I doubt that assumption, but I don't understand how you would control for factors in a way that you could clearly prove that assumption scientifically without showing that treating the sleep issues lessens drug use, or the inverse. And an intervention that ONLY effects sleep doesn't exist - any intervention, pharmacological or more psychological (teaching meditation etc) is going to have effects that escape nighttime, and could differentially interact with the insomnia and control subjects regardless of effects on sleep.
For example, meditation could be much more beneficial for the insomnia group of kids regardless of effects on sleep if the kids have insomnia from neuropathology, and if meditation is good for neuropathology. So will we ever really know for 100% sure that it's the insomnia causing the increases drug use? It could be (for example) that ASD causes insomnia and it ends up being the ASD that both keeps the child awake AND drives drug use, and teaching the kid to meditate just to sleep better at night might improve daytime mindfulness so you couldn't separate the beneficial effects of increased sleep from the beneficial effects of mindfulness during the day. Just playing devils advocate though, I'm sure that the daytime consequences of having not slept are driving drug use to a fair degree. I just can't think of any actual way to prove it.
Brant P. Hasler. The hazards of bad sleep—Sleep duration and quality as predictors of adolescent alcohol and cannabis use. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 2016; DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2016.08.009
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