Survey study, 2025
Do menstrual problems and poor sleep affect mood and thinking in teenage girls?
Yes. Clear links exist between menstrual pain or PMS symptoms and anxiety, depression, and social problems in adolescent girls. Sleep also matters. Girls with later bedtimes or shorter sleep plus pain had worse mood and thinking problems.
What they did
Researchers studied 2,131 girls aged 12-15 from an ongoing health study. They asked girls about their sleep times and menstrual pain and PMS. Parents reported on the girls' mood, anxiety, stress, and thinking abilities.
What they found
Girls with worse PMS had higher anxiety, depression, stress, physical complaints, social problems, and slower thinking. Girls with menstrual pain had similar problems except thinking was not affected. Later bedtimes strengthened pain's link to anxiety and depression. Shorter sleep strengthened pain's link to slower thinking.
What it means for you
Menstrual problems significantly affect how adolescent girls feel and function at school and socially. Sleep timing matters too. Addressing both sleep and menstrual health could improve teenage girls' wellbeing. The study shows correlation only, not cause and effect.
2131
Girls studied
13.09
Average age
12-15
Age range
About the study
- Original title
- 0298 Associations Between Sleep, Menstrual Problems, and Affective, Social, and Cognitive Functioning in Adolescent Girls
- Authors
- Evelyn Perez-Amparan, Ruby Fan, Hannah Giarrusso et al.
- Journal
- SLEEP
- Year
- 2025
- Study design
- Survey study
- What was tested
- Sleep patterns and menstrual problems and their relationship (observational)
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaf090.0298
Topics
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