UCLA CDA Co-Executive Directors, Adriana Galván and Andrew Fuligni, spoke with PBS NewsHour’s William Brangham about why sleep is so important to youth mental health.
How Teenagers’ Lack of Sleep is Taking a Toll on Their Mental Health
How Teenagers’ Lack of Sleep is Taking a Toll on Their Mental Health
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This fact sheet gives an overview of adolescent brain development and explains how access to resources, opportunities, and meaningful relationships during adolescence can build connections within our brains and with the world around us that support us into adulthood.
Brain development during adolescence is fundamentally a story of connections.
Around age 9 or 10, hormonal changes kick off a period of intense learning and development, when brain cells form, strengthen, and streamline connections in response to our experiences more rapidly than in any period of life after early childhood.
Activity increases especially in the brain networks that propel us to explore the world, learn from our mistakes, and connect with others in new ways. In turn, these new experiences prompt our brain cells to connect with other neurons in ways that help us adapt to new events and new information. These neural connections become stronger the more we use them, while unused connections are pruned away, helping the brain become more efficient at acquiring and mastering new skills and new ways of thinking.
This brain-building learning happens through direct experiences in our environments and interactive, responsive relationships—with our families and peers, in our classrooms and neighborhoods, in community activities, and even online. The resources, opportunities, and experiences we as adults provide in and out of school can help young people’s brains build the extensive networks of connections that will manage the complex knowledge and behaviors needed to navigate adulthood.
Learning by Exploring the World Around Us
One of the networks that changes significantly with the increase in hormones and dopamine at the beginning of puberty is the “reward system” in our brain. Heightened activity in this system increases the feeling of reward we get from exploring the world, taking risks, and learning from the results.
Meanwhile, the network of brain regions that make up the “social brain” also changes during adolescence. These changes help us tune into social and emotional cues, like facial expressions or social rejection and approval, and increase our desire to earn respect and contribute to others. It also enables us to learn the nuances of changing social contexts in ways that help prepare us for adult relationships.
The prefrontal cortex (the region of the brain that orchestrates critical thinking and behavioral control) undergoes its most rapid period of development during adolescence. It builds on many other systems within the brain to manage our responses to the flood of new information and intensifying emotions. Engaging with other people and our environment and learning from our successes and our mistakes, known as “action-based learning,” helps shape the prefrontal cortex by strengthening the connections within it and between it and other brain networks. We learn through repeated practice—which includes trying and sometimes failing—what is adaptive and appropriate in different situations and how to guide our behavior accordingly, in ways that equip us to pursue new forward-looking goals.
When adults provide youth with opportunities to try new things, to practice navigating emotions, and to learn from failures along the way, it helps build the brain connections that we all need to grow into healthy, thriving adults.
Policies, Experiences, and Mindsets Shape the Connecting Brain
Although we can continue to learn new skills and behaviors as adults, the adaptability of the brain during adolescence means that these connections are much more likely to form quickly in response to experiences. The extent of these changes make the adolescent years a critical window when investments in the right policies and programs for youth can shape long-term positive development.
Likewise, this makes the adolescent years a time when negative experiences including racism, other forms of discrimination, poverty, or abuse can create steeper hills for young people to climb toward a healthy adulthood. When adults ensure that all young people, especially those who have experienced earlier adversity, have what they need along their journey, they can build the skills and capacities they need to thrive as adults. This includes opportunities to explore and take healthy risks, to connect with and contribute to those around us, to make decisions and learn from the outcomes, to develop a healthy sense of identity, and to rely on support from parents or other caring adults.
Understanding how and why the brain develops during adolescence lets us provide the support young people need to build healthy connections—in their world and within their brains—that will help our youth and our communities thrive.
Real-World Practice Helps Adolescents Learn to Make Reasoned Decisions and Manage Emotions
Education | Community Engagement | Mental Health | Out-of-School Time
This fact sheet highlights what research tells us about how youth build good decision-making skills and navigate challenging emotions, and highlights how adults can help in this process.
Adolescence is a time of remarkable opportunity and growth. During these years, changes to the brain networks involved in processing emotions and guiding behavior—combined with the novelty of strong emotions like falling in love—can amplify the intensity of our emotions. This makes our middle and high school years a critical window to learn to navigate emotions.
Policies and programs that support adolescents to practice making decisions and regulating their emotions in real-world settings lead to healthier, more connected communities.
Learning to make good decisions and manage strong emotions in a positive way are fundamental skills to learn in our adolescent years. Fortunately, we’re developmentally primed to tackle these areas of learning during this period.
Throughout adolescence, our cognitive and emotional abilities mature in ways that help us more deeply consider the needs and perspectives of others, think abstractly, and analyze more complex issues compared to when we’re younger. These changes prepare us to develop the skills we need to make good decisions and navigate our emotions. And like every skill, we need opportunities to practice in real-world situations and to make and learn from mistakes.
Research on adolescent development highlights the ways that youth build the necessary skills to make good decisions and navigate challenging emotions and how adults can help.
Some of the most significant changes to the brain during adolescence affect the networks involved in processing emotions and guiding behavior. The amygdala—the part of the brain involved in processing and recognizing emotion—is highly sensitive to social cues during adolescence, helping us adapt to the nuances of social contexts in ways that help prepare us for the complexities of the adult world. This increased sensitivity, combined with the fact that we’re having many intense experiences for the first time (like falling in love or going through a breakup), contribute to emotions that can be more intensely expressed compared to adults.
Our heightened sensitivity to emotions associated with peer acceptance or rejection can influence our decision making during adolescence. On the one hand, we’re more likely to make risky decisions when we’re in situations that are emotionally charged, particularly in the presence of peers, which can sometimes be unhealthy. On the other hand, our friends can also motivate us to do good and to make prosocial choices—choices intended to benefit others—like sticking up for a friend.
Development during adolescence also increases our capability to navigate emotions, plan for the future to achieve a goal, and solve problems. Throughout adolescence, we build the cognitive and emotional abilities to consider the needs and perspectives of others and to assess complex issues. Given the time and space to deliberately weigh different options, many adolescents are capable of reasoning as well as adults when making decisions.
We build our emotional regulation and decision-making skills through real-world opportunities to practice and to learn from the outcomes. Experiences such as finding healthy ways to cope with disappointment and making choices about personal aspects of our lives help us learn how to respond during emotional situations and make smart decisions.
Programs and interventions that help us build emotion-regulation skills and reduce impulsive decision making can support us during this dynamic window of growth and learning. Learning to recognize emotions and adapt emotional responses in a way that is appropriate to the situation can be an important step in promoting healthy decision making.
➢ As adolescents build their decision-making skills, supportive adults should provide them with opportunities for increasing agency in decisions that impact their lives. This increased agency can occur in the many contexts of adolescents’ lives—at home with family, in school, at extracurricular activities, and in the community.
➢ When provided with the relevant information and time to consider the options, young people have the ability to make rational, well-reasoned decisions about their well-being. Adults who support adolescents faced with particularly consequential decisions, such as social workers, attorneys, and health care providers, should ensure young people have the time and information necessary to weigh their options.
➢ The natural inclination to evaluate and learn during adolescence makes it an ideal time to engage young people as partners in policy and program development and evaluation. When done well, youth engagement provides adolescents with skills and opportunities that align with the unique developmental needs of this stage of life.
Key Developmental Needs of Adolescence
Fact sheet | Education | Community Engagement | Mental Health | Out-of-School Time | Foster Care | Juvenile Justice
This fact sheet gives a summary of six key developmental needs that research tells us are critical to healthy development during our adolescent years.
Research into adolescent development points to core developmental needs during our adolescent years. These key developmental needs of adolescence include:
Explore the world and test out new ideas and experiences
Heightened activity in the “reward center” of our brain during adolescence increases our motivation to try new things and explore the world, which help us discover who we are, expand our skills, and ultimately leave the familiarity of home. Policies and programs that provide opportunities for healthy risk taking help youth channel these tendencies in ways that support positive development.
Developing meaning and purpose through contribution
During adolescence, we’re increasingly able to support others in deeper, more meaningful ways than when we were younger. Experiences in which we make a positive difference help us develop a sense of meaning and purpose, which support wellbeing, academic success, and resilience. Policies and programs should ensure all young people have opportunities to contribute.
Build decision making and emotional regulation skills
Our cognitive and emotional abilities mature during adolescence in ways that help us develop new skills related to making good decisions and navigating our emotions. We continue to build these skills as we practice in real-world situations with support to make and learn from mistakes. Supportive adults should provide them with opportunities for increasing agency in decisions that impact their lives.
Support from Parents and Other Caring Adults
Secure and supportive relationships with caring adults when we’re adolescents are essential to our physical and mental health, helping us build resilience, develop a positive sense of self, and form a positive racial and ethnic identity. Programs and policies can help prioritize strong family bonds and provide mentors for youth.
Developing Values, Goals, & Identity
During adolescence, our relationships, experiences, and the messages we receive about our racial, gender, and other identities help us form a positive sense of identity and belonging. Policies and programs that provide opportunities to explore roles and activities can help youth discover what they value, who they are, and who they want to become.
Find a respected role among peers and adults
Changes in our brain and our social settings during adolescence increase our social awareness and motivate us to learn the skills we need for the more complex social demands of adulthood. These changes also amplify the impact of discrimination. Policies and programs can ensure that all young people have ample positive pathways to gain respect.
Get sufficient sleep to support mental and physical well-being
Extensive research shows that healthy development, learning, and positive mental health during our adolescent years all require healthy, restful sleep. Schools, employers, youth-serving programs, and youth-focused residential settings should prioritize providing young people with schedules and conditions that promote quality sleep.