These photos, which have just came to light, were taken when Angelina Jolie was an aspiring unknown. At teenage Angelina Jolie part in the racy swimsuit photo shoot with photographer Sean McCall. Looking very fresh-faced, Angelina wore a range of skimpy outfits including a bikini and one-piece bathing suit. And the carefree innocence of 16-year-old Angelina’s grin has been replaced by a perfect Hollywood smile.
There’s no denying the unique benefits of a good night’s sleep or the impact of not getting enough sleep. Not only does getting too little sleep leave us drowsy and unable to concentrate the next day, it also leads to impaired memory and physical performance. Not getting enough sleep on a regular basis increases the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease, among other medical conditions. The consequences of sleep deprivation during the teen years are especially serious—impairing their ability to be alert, pay attention, solve problems, retain information and cope with stress. Young people who chronically lack adequate sleep carry a significant risk for fall-asleep car accidents; tobacco and alcohol use; poor impulse control and violence; and lower overall performance in everything from academics to athletics. And a new study shows that youngsters who don’t get enough sleep night after night are more likely to suffer from depressionFor the study, Dr. James E. Gangwisch of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, and his colleagues analyzed data on the nightly habits of 15,659 college and high-school students who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health between 1994 and 1996. The researchers found that youngsters with bedtimes of midnight or later had a 24 percent higher risk of depression and 20 percent higher risk of suicidal thoughts than those with bedtimes of 10 p.m. or earlier.
Teens who reported five or fewer hours of sleep per night were 71 percent more likely to be depressed and 48 percent more likely to have suicidal thoughts, compared to youngsters who slept eight hours nightly. “Our results are consistent with the theory that inadequate sleep is a risk factor for depression, working with other risk and protective factors through multiple possible causal pathways to the development of this mood disorder,” said Gangwisch. “Adequate quality sleep could therefore be a preventative measure against depression and a treatment for depression.” and more apt to have suicidal thoughts.
The researchers say lack of sleep could affect brain responses and lead to moodiness that hinders the ability to cope with stresses of daily life; affecting judgment, concentration and impulse control. “It is a common perception and societal expectation that adolescents do not need as much sleep as pre-adolescents, yet studies suggest that adolescents may actually require more sleep,” Gangwisch said. “Studies have found that adolescents do not go to bed early enough to compensate for earlier school start times, and transitions to earlier school start times have been shown to be associated with significant sleep deprivation.”
Research has shown that adolescents require at least as much sleep as they did as children, generally 8.5 to 9.25 hours each night. However, teens average fewer than 7 hours per school night and most report feeling tired during the day. This could be due in part to the fact that, because of a change in their internal clocks, most youngsters undergo a sleep phase delay, which means a tendency toward later times for falling asleep and waking up. Findings like these have prompted many school systems around the country to adjust their school schedules, allowing for a later start time for high-school students.
