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Teenagers with 'smelly bedrooms' could be losing out on sleep, according to experts

Teenagers to receive 'bedroom hygiene' lessons as part of nationwide study

Sunday 24 January 2016 10:15 EST
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'Young people never open their windows,' professor says
'Young people never open their windows,' professor says (Steve Cox/Flickr creative commons )

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Bedrooms that smell bad can cause teenagers to lose sleep, experts have warned.

They say bad odours in the bedroom have been linked to insomnia, which can lead to a decline in academic performance and poor mental wellbeing.

Colin Espie, a Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and author of “The Oxford Handbook of Sleep and Sleep Disorders”, told the Sun: “Young people never open their windows, their rooms are never ventilated.

“The smelly teenager’s bedroom is a by-product of the fact that it is full of rebreathed air, which is low in oxygen and full in nitrogen.

“If you keep rebreathing the same air in a small bedroom that is hot and not ventilated you will wake up with a headache after a poor night’s sleep.”

Teenagers will be given lessons in bedroom hygiene as part of a nationwide study of 32,000 students from up to 100 schools. Their academic performance and mood will be assessed over the course of a year to see the effects of the lessons and improved hygiene.

The study will also assess if later start times at school have a positive impact on teenagers.

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