(Press-News.org) Teenagers who don’t get enough sleep on school nights or have interrupted sleep are at greater risk of suicide, new research from the University of Warwick has found.
Suicide is the one of the leading causes of death among adolescents in the UK. Despite teenagers’ well-known tendency to miss out on sleep—due to both biological and social factors—the long-term impact of this sleep loss on suicide risk has remained unclear.
Now, researchers at the University of Warwick have demonstrated a longitudinal link between disrupted sleep in early adolescence and later suicide attempts, for the first time in the context of risk-taking and decision making.
The new study, published in Sleep Advances, analysed data from more than 8,500 young people in the Millennium Cohort Study. It was found that adolescents who reported a suicide attempt at age 17 were more likely to have had shorter time in bed on school days and disrupted sleep at age 14.
Michaela Pawley, PhD Candidate in the Department of Psychology at University of Warwick said: “Adolescence is a crucial developmental period where both sleep problems and suicide risk tend to emerge. Our findings show that adolescents who experience difficulties maintaining and obtaining sufficient sleep are more likely to report a suicide attempt several years later. Poor sleep is not just a symptom of wider difficulties, but a significant risk factor in its own right. Addressing sleep problems could form a vital part of suicide prevention strategies.”
The key findings from the team at Warwick include:
Shorter total time in bed on school days and more frequent night awakenings at 14 years of age were associated with an increased likelihood of reporting attempted suicide at 17 years.
These associations held even after accounting for established suicide risk factors such as socioeconomic status, self-harm history, and mental health difficulties.
Shorter total time in bed on school days and more frequent night awakenings were stronger risk factors compared to depressive symptoms and other established psychosocial risk factors.
The researchers were the first to explore how cognitive factors may influence this relationship. They found that teenagers with stronger rational decision-making skills appeared protected against the impact of night awakenings on suicide risk —although this protective effect diminished with frequent sleep disruption. This opens the question of what other factors may interplay with sleep to confer adolescent suicide risk.
Senior author Professor Nicole Tang, Director of Warwick Sleep and Pain Lab at the University of Warwick added: “We need to recognise that sleep deprivation and fragmentation are not trivial complaints – they can wear your defences down and drive actions or behaviours that have life-or-death consequences. If we can better identify and support teenagers struggling with sleep, we may be able to reduce suicide attempts.”
The researchers note that while insufficient sleep likely contributes to difficulties in cognitive functioning like decision-making, further studies are needed to fully understand these pathways. Nonetheless, the findings provide a basis for identifying teens most at risk of the poorest outcomes and highlight the potential of increasing sleep time on school nights as a practical target for suicide prevention in young people.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
For more information please contact:
Matt Higgs, PhD | Media & Communications Officer (Press Office)
Email: Matt.Higgs@warwick.ac.uk | Phone: +44(0)7880 175403
Study Details
The study used data from the Millennium Cohort Study waves 6 and 7, covering adolescents at ages 14 and 17 (n=8,524).
Sleep variables included time in bed on school and non-school days, sleep onset latency, frequency of night awakenings, and social jetlag.
Suicide attempt was measured through self-report at age 17.
Risk-taking and decision-making were assessed using the Cambridge Gambling Task.
Paper title: Sleep Problems, Decision-Making, and Suicide Attempts During Adolescence: A Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study. DOI: 10.1093/sleepadvances/zpaf062
If you have been affected by the issues raised in this report and need support:
Children and young people affected by mental health issues can find support, information, and details about their local NHS mental health services at www.youngminds.org.uk/find-help or call Childline on 0800 1111.
For adults, whether you are concerned about yourself or a loved one, you can find local NHS urgent mental health helplines and a list of mental health charities, organisations and support groups offering expert advice, on the NHS website at: www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mental-health-helplines/ or call Samaritans on 116 123.
About The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS)
The MCS is following 19,517 young people born across the UK in 2000-01, building a uniquely detailed portrait of the children of the new century. The MCS is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and a consortium of government departments and managed by the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the UCL Social Research Institute. Visit https://www.cls.ucl.ac.uk/cls-studies/millennium-cohort-study/.
About the University of Warwick
Founded in 1965, the University of Warwick is a world-leading institution known for its commitment to era-defining innovation across research and education. A connected ecosystem of staff, students and alumni, the University fosters transformative learning, interdisciplinary collaboration, and bold industry partnerships across state-of-the-art facilities in the UK and global satellite hubs. Here, spirited thinkers push boundaries, experiment, and challenge conventions to create a better world.
END
From agriculture and urban land clearance to loss of habitat and feral animal predation, native wild animals and their food sources face a rising tide of threats caused by human activities.
A new study led by Flinders University warns traffic noise is one more pressure faced by one of southern Australia’s rare songbirds, the threatened Southern Emu-wren (Stipiturus malachurus).
“Anthropogenic (human) noise has the potential to negatively impact wildlife by disrupting communication and reducing overall fitness. This includes the effects ...
Agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution is a major cause of water quality degradation, with pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus carried by farmland surface runoff being important sources. Statistics show that in 2017, the total nitrogen discharge from agricultural sources in China reached 1.4149 Mt, and total phosphorus was 212 kt. Among these, the nitrogen and phosphorus emissions from cropping alone accounted for 51% and 36% of agricultural source pollutants, respectively. However, current farmland runoff monitoring methods have obvious limitations: traditional runoff pool monitoring has a small ...
Agricultural green development is an important issue for global sustainable development, and the efficient utilization of nitrogen fertilizers and environmental emission reduction have always been core challenges faced by China’s agriculture. As a key input in food production, nitrogen fertilizers contribute 45% of China’s grain yield increase and 60% of protein supply in the food chain. However, China’s nitrogen use efficiency was only 42.6% in 2024, which not only causes resource waste but also leads to environmental problems such as about 400 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, 70% of global nitrous oxide emissions, and water eutrophication. ...
Australian ecologists have made a remarkable discovery about the mysterious and endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart: it is partial to climbing trees.
Up until now, the small carnivorous marsupial was thought to be a ground dweller.
The finding, published this month in Pacific Conservation Biology, is the first confirmed evidence that the Kangaroo Island dunnart can climb trees and shelter in hollows, using artificial nest boxes that were originally installed for pygmy-possums.
The discovery is part of the Kangaroo Island Nest Box Project, a large-scale citizen science initiative led by UniSA scientist Associate Professor Sophie (Topa) Petit and Peter Hammond from the Kangaroo Island ...
What if the front line in the fight against climate change wasn’t in a high-tech lab or a global summit—but in the muddy, tangled roots of a mangrove forest?
In the coastal heart of the Philippines, a quiet revolution is taking root. A new study published on September 5, 2025, in the open-access journal Carbon Research, shows that mangroves, those hardy, salt-tolerant trees lining tropical shorelines, are not just nature’s coastal defenders. They’re also carbon vaults, quietly locking away tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And now, thanks to the work of Dr. Hannah Alexis Melquiades Asilo and her team at the University of the Philippines ...
Researchers have uncovered a surprising new role for nano-biochar, showing that it can drive the natural formation and accumulation of silver nanoparticles in rice roots. The study, published in Biochar, reveals how this tiny carbon material interacts with plant roots to transform silver ions into metallic nanoparticles, potentially affecting both plant health and the movement of metals in the environment.
Silver is widely used in electronics, medicine, and antimicrobial products, which leads to the release of silver ions into soils and waterways. These ions are highly reactive and can pose risks to living organisms. In contrast, silver nanoparticles are more stable and less toxic. ...
Electronic waste is piling up around the world at a rate that far outpaces recycling efforts, partly because it’s so costly and time-consuming to recover useful materials from discarded gadgets. When processed improperly, spent electronics can expose workers and the environment to lead, mercury and other toxic chemicals. Without systemic changes, our global appetite for electronics could produce an annual 60 million tons of electronic waste by 2030.
This conundrum inspired a team at the University ...
Prominent research studies have suggested that our planet is currently experiencing another mass extinction, based on extrapolating extinctions from the past 500 years into the future and the idea that extinction rates are rapidly accelerating.
A new study by Kristen Saban and John Wiens with the University of Arizona Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, however, revealed that over the last 500 years extinctions in plants, arthropods and land vertebrates peaked about 100 years ago and have declined since then. Furthermore, the researchers found that the past extinctions underlying these ...
The discovery of a tiny foot bone millions of years old reveals Aotearoa New Zealand was once home to a songbird species with potentially unique courtship behaviours, new research shows.
These days bowerbirds are only found in Australia and New Guinea but an international collaboration by the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the University of Cambridge shows they may have resided in Aotearoa 14-19 million years ago.
The foot bone that was found in the St Bathans, Central Otago, fossil deposits bore a close similarity to bowerbirds, though belonged to a bird that was much smaller than living species.
Co-author Associate ...
Scientists at ARUP Laboratories have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that detects intestinal parasites in stool samples more quickly and accurately than traditional methods, potentially transforming how labs diagnose parasitic infections around the world.
Identifying parasites under the microscope has long been a painstaking task requiring highly trained experts to manually scour each sample for telltale cysts, eggs or larva. Now, a deep-learning model, known as a convolutional neural network (CNN), achieves that work with a high degree ...
