Teen Anxiety: Improving Sleep | Anxiety Specialist | @caroline-cavanagh

23 Oct 2025 · 1 min

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In this segment, anxiety specialist Caroline Cavanagh explains that enforcing a rigid 9 p.m. bedtime on teenagers often backfires, especially when they are already sleep‑deprived. She argues that strict lights‑out rules increase friction, stress, and anxiety. Instead, she recommends giving teens controlled independence over their evening routine—allowing them to choose a calming activity (e.g., reading) until they naturally fall asleep. This approach reduces conflict, supports better sleep hygiene, and helps prevent a stressed, frustrated teenager.

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And it's not because they don't wanna get up. They haven't had much sleep. But if you still enforce them going to bed at 9 o'clock, you're just going to get more friction. And that doesn't mean staying up till 2 AM on the phone is a good option either. But this is where we can start working together. Give your teenager some independence and say, I know you're not falling asleep early, but what can you do with that time? So that they're not, you know, running amok or causing problems. My daughter, for example, her choice was to read. So she would carry on reading. Until she naturally fell asleep. But when you expect them to be lights out and falling asleep, all you're going to do is get a stressed, frustrated teenager.