The Science of Sleep

Studies conducted by Eve Van Cauter, director of the Sleep, Metabolism, and Health Center at the University of Chicago (USA), state that sleeping less than 6 hours a day could impair reaction capacity, generate cognitive problems, and incapacitate rational decision-making!

Effects of Sleep Deprivation

According to her study, sleeping less than 6 hours each night can lead to:

• Heart aging
• Risk of insulin resistance
• High blood pressure
• Risk of severe dementia or Alzheimer’s
• Psychosis or mental impairment
• Lack of concentration and productivity
• Blood toxicity
• Immune system dysfunction

The ideal amount of sleep for an adult is 6 to 9 hours per night.

The documentary “Science of Sleep” by National Geographic (available only in English) —made in 2015— showed research conducted in the 1980s that found depriving mice of sleep for 17 consecutive days resulted in certain death.

Studies

In 2013, in the United States, drowsy drivers caused 72,000 car accidents resulting in 800 deaths and 44,000 injuries. This is more than the deaths caused by texting and driving or drunk drivers.

Surveys show that 63% of people do not get enough sleep to be healthy, 69% have frequent sleep problems, and 22% are drowsy during the day, affecting their quality of life and work. The main reason indicated by most people is that they simply ignored their drowsiness to complete tasks they needed to fulfill.

Healthy sleep consists of several stages:

Stages 1 and 2 (light sleep; non-REM): Here, the biological processes in your body slow down, but your brain remains active as it begins the editing process where decisions are made about which memories to store and which to discard.

•Stages 3 and 4 (deep sleep; non-REM): This is a deeper stage of sleep during which physiological cleaning and detoxification processes occur in the brain. Here, your cerebrospinal fluid can remove waste.

•Stage 5 (REM): This is the phase of rapid eye movement (REM), where dreaming occurs. In this phase, your brain is as active as it is during wakefulness, but your body is paralyzed, preventing you from acting out your dreams.

Some have had a terrifying experience of sleep paralysis during this phase and found that their body did not respond. The “treatment” for this disorder is knowledge. As noted in “The Science of Sleep,” you simply need to be informed about what is happening so that you can calmly overcome the episode, which typically lasts no more than a few minutes.

Economic Data

Sleep deprivation has cost $411 billion annually in accidents and lost productivity³ to the economy of the United States and Europe, an amount equivalent to approximately 2.28% of their gross domestic product. Additionally, it is estimated that 1.2 million workdays are lost.

The Influence of Genetics, Jet Lag, and Stress Chemicals on Sleep

Lack of sleep can be worsened by jet lag. Also known as flight fatigue, time zone change syndrome, or desynchronosis, jet lag occurs when traveling across time zones disrupts the internal body clock, resulting in daytime drowsiness and lethargy, nighttime insomnia, irritability, confusion, and poor concentration.

Interestingly, researchers have found that people with a genetically inherited sleep disorder called familial advanced sleep phase syndrome have a circadian body clock that runs approximately three hours faster than normal.

Source:

• NHTSA Research on Drowsy Driving
• Sleep Association Statistics
• org, Why Sleep Matters — The Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep
• Sleep 1988 Feb; 11(1): 100–109
• Sleep Health July 30, 2018 [Epub ahead of print]
• Business Insider August 14, 2018
• ^,Journal of the American Heart Association 2018 Jun 9;7(12). pii: e008590