It's weird and funny because when I was around 12-17 years old I rarely slept past 10pm and that in the past 3 years I was around 19-22 I tend to sleep late most nights. Funny because maybe my body wants me to experience sleeping late that I didn't really do in my teenage years.
Yes! And, we must re-solidify that time is not arbitrary, and clocks must be set to geographically appropriate Standard Time worldwide, as objectively defined by the sun.
It seems to be a far worse problem for some teens with autism. I've seen a fair few who've almost reversed their sleep during adolescence and early adulthood and are awake all night and asleep all day. It's a really severe problem and magnifies the difficulties these young people already have.
I was hoping to see a typical teenage sleep graph- chart of their sleep cycles. A useless sleep doctor just told me I "sleep like a teenager", but not what she meant by that. With severe chronic insomnia, I slept better in her clinic because of the hope of getting help. My sleep pattern there was: Fell asleep within 5 mins at about 11 pm (probably because of extreme sleep debt), - went fast into Deep sleep stage without staying on the previous ones for long, - slept for 4 hours in one go, - in all 5 hours 13 minutes, with hours of waking time during the night and morning - Used to need 9 hours before becoming an insomniac in 1997 after psychiatry trauma. - Dr said it was unusual and not good at all, that I was able to almost to the minute correctly assess the number of hours and minutes that I had been asleep. (I said something like 5 hours and 11 minútes). - She told me my disease is serious (Anchylosing Spondylitits), and - that i need(ed) psychotherapy. She did not write anything for me to state this and to help me get that therapy. I still haven't got it 20 years later. Somebody kindly help me, please. I have Aspergers, High sensitivity, C-PTSD with severe stress burnout. I have many resources and have worked to get help to get well for 40 years. I am worth helping. Thank you very much.
I think it's important to mention that not all changes in adolescence are psychological, obviously physical changes occur too which use a lot of energy and the only time to recuperate and allow these large change are while we sleep (and these are pretty large changes). Also there are theories that attempt to explain the reasons for staying up late and some gloss over the idea that we stay up later to run rounds of almost night watch to protect our families in a tribal situation hence why a lot of people go to sleep around 3am some even later after experiencing a burst in energy when we know we should be resting.
