Sleep and Depression

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/11/13/MN1E1AFT5P.DTL

Few of us get the recommended nine hours of sleep a night, and the recent study highlighted in this article calls more attention to the reasons why we might want to try closing our eyes earlier. Previously, sleep deprivation was thought to be one result of depression, but newer evidence is emerging which points to sleep deprivation being a cause of depression.

"Teens with mandated bedtimes of midnight or later were more likely to suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts than those who had bedtimes of 10 p.m. or earlier, according to the June report."

That is quite an interesting statistic, especially considering that I know I hardly ever went to bed at 10 p.m. as a teenager, and doing so now seems nearly impossible. However, although we've all heard of the importance of sleep, getting the recommended amount of shut-eye is much easier said than done. As noted in this article, homework seems to be the primary reason why we stay up later than we should (as I write this at 2 a.m., I'm a perfect example of just that). Often times, it seems the problem is that there are never enough hours in a day. Yet, if we want to avoid the grasp of depression, we should likely become better at managing our time.