A new study shows poor sleep is taking a bigger toll on young people than any other age group. Find out why – and what some South Australian experts are doing about it.
Somewhere along the way, bad sleep became part of the unofficial job description for being a young adult.
Studying? Of course you’re tired. Starting a career? Obviously you’re tired. Raising small kids, working shifts, doomscrolling after midnight, trying to have a social life and pay rent? Tired comes with the territory.
But a new Flinders University and Sleep Health Foundation (FHMRI) study has found we’ve become far too relaxed about young adults running on empty.
The new research shows young Australians are taking the biggest hit from poor sleep of any age group – especially when it comes to work and study.
And Associate Professor Nicole Lovato says too many young people in their 20s and 30s are accepting bad sleep as normal, even when it may be a sign of something that can be treated.
When bad sleep starts feeling normal
Nicole, the lead author of the Aussie Sleep Snapshot, works in clinical practice alongside her research at the FHMRI Sleep Health.
She sees young adults regularly, and says those who are sleeping badly often blame everything except their sleep itself.
“Poor sleep gets normalised – whether it’s because of stress from uni, caring for young children, bad habits, or starting shift work,” Nicole says.
“A lot of the time, poor sleep gets attributed to those other factors, and whether there might be an underlying problem with their sleep – that just doesn’t get considered.”
It’s all in the numbers
Preventive Health SA recommends adults get 7-9 hours of sleep each night. The study looked at whether people were getting less than that, how often they felt they hadn’t had enough sleep, and whether poor sleep affected their work or study.
It found nearly a third of Australian adults are getting less than the recommended seven hours of sleep. More than half of young and middle-aged adults reported three or more nights of inadequate sleep in the previous week.
But the clearest finding was the productivity hit: more than a third of young adults said poor sleep was affecting how well they could work or study on three or more days a week – the highest productivity impact of any age group.
“They go to work, but they’re not necessarily very productive,” Nicole says.
When researchers asked young adults what was actually keeping them from sleeping well, two things dominated: a brain that wouldn’t switch off, and technology use.
The brain that won’t switch off
Researchers call it cognitive arousal – or, in normal-person language, your brain being far too switched on when it should be powering down ready for sleep.
Sometimes it shows up as worry or rumination – getting stuck in a loop of thoughts that don’t make you feel great. Sometimes it’s the opposite: that wired-but-tired feeling, where you suddenly become alert, motivated and mentally productive when it is time for sleep.
“Lots of young adults will talk about late at night as a really productive time,” Nicole says. “They feel switched on, and like they can think really clearly. All systems go. That’s cognitive arousal as well.”
Young women were the most likely group to report worry and a busy mind keeping them awake.
The phone problem isn’t what you think
Technology was the other big disruptor – but the science on phones and sleep is messier than the headlines suggest.
“For a long time, we thought it was the blue light coming from the screen that was the main thing keeping you awake,” Nicole says.
“But now we’re seeing there’s more to the picture. It can also be the content that people are watching, the emotionally driven stuff.”
“Sometimes it’s not the phone itself but that you are delaying your bedtime because you’re scrolling. People talk about the idea of ‘me time’ – it’s quiet, no one’s bothering you so you want to make that time last.”
It may not be a simple cause-and-effect story either: technology can affect sleep, but people already struggling to sleep may also be more likely to reach for their phone.
“For some young adults, using their phone before falling asleep feels helpful,” Nicole says. “If they have a lot of worries leading up to bed, or difficulty switching their mind off, technology can redirect their attention away from their worries and thoughts running away with them”.
It might not be ‘just’ bad sleep
Nicole’s bigger message is that bad sleep in your 20s and 30s isn’t something you have to push through.
“Twenty per cent of people in this young adult age group will have a sleep disorder that warrants clinical investigation,” she says. That’s most often insomnia – and it’s worth treating early, because sleep is closely tied to mental health.
“If a person has comorbid depression or anxiety, treating the sleep also improves their anxiety and depression,” Nicole says. “And if you treat the depression without treating the sleep, there’s a greater likelihood of relapse.”
Sleep is one of the foundations Preventive Health SA flags as essential to long-term health – alongside diet and movement – but Nicole says it’s the one that quietly props up the other two.
“If your sleep’s not right, you can’t get your diet or exercise right either,” she says. “If you’re not sleeping, it is really difficult to do anything well.”
It also has knock-on effects you don’t necessarily notice until they bite. In clinic, Nicole does safety planning for driving with young parents, shift workers and carers who are surviving on broken sleep.
“If you feel too tired to drive, we look at what the alternatives are,” she says. “Because when you’re sleep-deprived, your ability to see those alternatives in the moment is hindered. You often don’t have all your mental capacity to make different plans when you have had poor sleep the night before.”
The treatment hardly anyone’s getting
The first-line treatment for chronic insomnia isn’t sleeping pills. It’s cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia – known as CBTi – but a second Flinders study found less than one per cent of adults with clinical insomnia symptoms had received it.
“It targets the factors that drive the insomnia and maintain it over time,” Nicole says. “Whereas sleep medications are more like a band-aid. As soon as you stop taking them, the factors are still there. Nothing’s changed.”
CBTi can also be helpful for young kids, shift work and chronic illness.
“Sometimes you don’t have that much control over those things, but you can still improve your sleep,” Nicole says.
A GP can refer you under a mental health care plan, which can cover the cost.
A new way to figure out what’s actually wrong
If you’re wondering whether you’re experiencing a problem with your sleep, Sleep Spotlight can help.
Flinders University and the Sleep Health Foundation are inviting Australians aged 18 and over to trial Sleep Spotlight, an online screening tool that checks for common sleep disorders – including insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea, circadian rhythm problems, shift-work disorder and chronic insufficient sleep.
“You fill it in online, it emails you a report afterwards, and then you take that to your GP to start a conversation,” Nicole says. “It’s really about improving awareness and promoting help seeking for sleep disorder management”.
“You don’t have to just accept poor sleep. And it may not just be poor sleep – it might be a sleep disorder that you can treat. That’s going to have positive knock-on effects, not just now, but as you age as well.”
Find out more and sign up for the Sleep Spotlight trial at the FHMRI Sleep Health website. See more about the FHMRI’s Sleep Health Clinics here.
