Social distancing and lockdown due to COVID-19: Impact on sleep and mood of adolescents

The unprecedented situation of countrywide lockdown with closure of physical schools, social distancing, and home confinement which arose due to COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the sleep and mood of all age groups. Adolescence is the age of transition from childhood to adulthood. Students in this phase are anxious with planning for future and thus fall an easy prey to unhealthy lifestyle including irregular sleep cycle and eating habits. Freedom to follow self-decided sleep schedule with extensive use of digital media and sedentary lifestyle during the pandemic further added to the trend of unhealthy lifestyle among them. This perspective is aimed to explore the effect of nationwide or regional lockdowns enforced for curtailment of COVID-19 infection on the mood and sleep habits of adolescents. There were some positive as well as negative impacts on the sleep quality and mood of adolescents. Although home confinement gave a lot of opportunities to follow own sleep schedules and eating habits such as those on weekends or vacations, it also increased the separation stress from their peers, anxiety and fear of disease, erratic sleep schedule, and screen time among adolescents.