Where has all the sleep gone?

'If you don't sleep, your body is stressed, you crave food, your immune system is compromised.'

'If you don't sleep, your body is stressed, you crave food, your immune system is compromised.'

Published Oct 29, 2015

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London - Millions of adults get five hours’ sleep a night at most, it emerged recently.

Nearly a quarter of those aged 30 to 50 in a survey admitted missing out on so much sleep that it could damage their health.

The loss in sleep could be as much as 15 days over a year, the study said. Most people need at least seven and a half hours a night to function at their best.

Lack of sleep has been linked to anxiety, depression, diabetes, heart disease, impaired work and an increased risk of accidents.

Psychologists at the University of Leeds conducted the online survey among 1 024 Britons aged 18 to 80. It showed striking levels of sleep deficiency in the 30-to-50 group, the time of life when work and family stress peak.

Lead scientist Dr Anna Weighall said it was a “real concern” that so many people were sleeping so little, adding: “Less than five hours is associated with serious negative health outcomes, including cardiovascular problems, obesity and diabetes.

“The increasing demands of modern life, social media and connected technologies may affect the quality and quantity of our sleep and pose a serious and detrimental threat to health.” The research, funded by Silentnight beds, was presented at the British Sleep Society conference in Newcastle.

It found that just three percent of 30-to-50-year-olds planned to sleep five hours a night and most hoped to get eight to nine hours.

But when asked about the night before, almost 25 percent said they had less than five hours.

Dr Weighall said that in previous studies, sleep is usually been monitored by asking people to think about their sleep patterns over a long period of time – and participants usually misremember how much they have slept.

But, in the latest study, the researchers “asked concrete questions about the previous night’s sleep and compared it to reports of average sleep during the previous month”, she explained.

Dr Weighall also said that those under pressure may sleep less than they realise, adding: “It is interesting to note the gap between how much sleep people think they need or intend to get and how much they actually get.

“This is of particular interest in terms of how the public health agenda might improve the nation’s sleep, because it suggests that we need to focus on giving people the tools necessary to change their behaviour, alongside information about the importance of sleep.”

Of all the participants, 42 percent said they found their jobs stressful and 30 percent indicated that their work had negatively affected their sleep during the previous week.

Daily Mail

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