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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Sleep Sci
DOI: 10.1055/s-0043-1777831
Original Article

Sex Differences in Temporal Sleep Patterns, Social Jetlag, and Attention in High School Adolescents

Fernanda Mayara Crispim Diogo 
1   Chronobiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Postgraduate Program on Psychobiology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
,
Zoelia Camila Moura Bessa
1   Chronobiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Postgraduate Program on Psychobiology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
,
Sabinne Danielle Galina
1   Chronobiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Postgraduate Program on Psychobiology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
,
Maria Luiza Cruz de Oliveira
1   Chronobiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Postgraduate Program on Psychobiology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
,
Emanuel Linegley Ribeiro da Silva-Júnior
1   Chronobiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Postgraduate Program on Psychobiology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
,
Pablo Valdez
2   Psychophysiology Laboratory, Faculty of Psychology, University Autonomous of Nuevo León, Monterrey, NL, Mexico
,
Carolina Virginia Macêdo de Azevedo
1   Chronobiology Laboratory, Department of Physiology and Behavior, Postgraduate Program on Psychobiology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, RN, Brazil
› Author Affiliations Funding This work was supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES – Grant #001), Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte.
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Abstract

Insufficient sleep and irregular sleep hours are common in adolescents, who experience a delayed sleep phase due to biopsychosocial changes associated with puberty, resulting in later sleep times. However, early morning class hours shorten sleep duration on weekdays. This condition is harmful to cognitive performance, which may be accentuated in girls due to a greater sleep need and less resistance to sleep deprivation. In this study, we evaluated sex differences concerning temporal sleep patterns, social jetlag, and attention in high school adolescents attending morning classes. Students (n = 146 - F: 73–16.1 ± 0.8 years; M: 73–16.2 ± 0.9 years) completed a Health and Sleep questionnaire, kept a sleep diary for 10 days, which incorporated a Maldonado Sleepiness Scale, and performed a Continuous Performance Task. On weekends, the girls went to bed earlier and woke up later, spending more time in bed at night and in 24 h on weekdays and weekends, while they also had a greater irregularity in wake-up times (p < 0.05). There were no differences between sexes in terms of social jetlag, sleep debt, and sleepiness upon awakening (p > 0.05). Regarding attention, the girls had a longer reaction time in phasic alertness (p < 0.01) and a tendency to have fewer errors in selective attention (p = 0.06). These results persisted when controlled for sleep parameters. Therefore, this suggests that girls have a greater sleep need and less resistance to sleep deprivation, while the differences in attention performance could be due to different strategies, the girls could be making a trade, reducing reaction time in favor of better accuracy, while the boys could be prioritizing a faster response time.

Keywords

sleep deprivation - cognition - adolescent behavior - social jetlag - attention


Publication History

Received: 23 January 2023

Accepted: 02 August 2023

Article published online:
15 February 2024

© 2024. Brazilian Sleep Association. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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