A new study has suggested that playing a video game prior to bedtime has only a little effect on the sleep of older male teens. The findings of the study reveal that after playing an invigorating video game, adolescents required an average time of 7.5 minutes to fall asleep.

This was only a trifle more than the 3 minutes hiatus that they require to fall asleep after watching a passive documentary on a DVD. It was also seen that although none of the participants slept off while playing the video games, 1/3 fell asleep while seeing the DVD.

It was reported that subjective sleepiness post video game play was only faintly lesser than after watching the DVD. The video game was also linked with little amplification in cognitive alertness. However, no considerable variation in physiologic arousal or sleep architecture was discovered during testing.

Michael Gradisar, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Child Psychology at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia and lead researcher revealed that the findings were perplexing. Researchers were amazed to find that the violentvideo game did not result in a longer time to fall asleep. The study conducted at the Flinders University Sleep Laboratory. It has been published in the April 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine.