Risks of sleeplessness
The latest research dovetails with longtime warnings about the dangers of insufficient sleep, which the National Institutes of Health says can lead to “physical and mental health problems, injuries, loss of productivity and even a greater risk of death.”
Over the years, sleeplessness has quietly grown into a pervasive problem. One-third of American adults regularly get too little sleep, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly half of all American adults complain that poor or insufficient sleep affects their daily activities at least once a week, according to the National Sleep Foundation. What’s more, an estimated 50 million to 70 million Americans have chronic sleep disorders, according to a health survey for the CDC.
Without at least seven or eight hours of sleep at night, Americans face a tough slog getting through the day and leave themselves more vulnerable to illness. Scientists have linked sleep deficiency to many chronic health problems, including heart and kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity and depression.
While the relationship between sleep deprivation and adverse health consequences is not fully understood, Alapat says, a lot of it has to do with denying the body the rest it needs for healing and to refresh the neurons in the brain, as well as to fight off poisonous substances. “There are toxins that essentially accumulate in the brain that need to be cleared out with sleep” to avoid long-term threats to the immune system and cardiovascular functions, Alapat says.
The sleep-deprived also perform worse at learning, memory, and creative and analytic reasoning — a special problem for powerful chief executives and decision-makers. And nearly 40 percent of adults have reported falling asleep without meaning to at least once a month, according to NIH. That’s a recipe for car crashes, aviation and ship accidents, industrial mishaps and even medical malpractice by exhausted hospital interns.
In general, Alapat recommends that naps last no longer than 30 minutes. When a person falls asleep, the brain goes through several stages of sleep, ultimately leading to the deepest stage, known as rapid eye movement sleep, or REM. Once a person reaches that dreamy