According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), not getting enough sleep is a public health epidemic. The CDC reports that one-third of adult Americans get fewer than seven hours of sleep a night and one-third of adults are sleepy during daylight hours every day.
On a basic level, sleep helps people feel better overall. But research shows that sleep is important in helping the brain work properly. During sleep, the brain creates new pathways that help with memory, learning and emotional behavior. Sleep aids genes that contribute to the health and repair of cells throughout the body. It helps our bodies fight off disease. It’s essential in healthy growth and development in infants and children.
Researchers have proven that adults who don’t get enough sleep have higher rates of diabetes, obesity, heart disease, stroke, depression and mortality. People are less productive at work and school. They react slower and make more mistakes, which can lead to more immediate consequences like car accidents.
“Inadequate sleep has an immediate and dramatic impact on virtually every brain function,” says Dr. Buysse. “We’ve done studies of people in a lab setting and restricted their sleep. People report feeling sleepy, but then their sleepiness levels off. But when we’re measuring how well they’re performing at a task, they just get worse and worse. People who are sleep deprived lose the ability to recognize how impaired they are.”
Staying up too late isn’t the only reason for a lack of sleep. Sleep disorders—such as insomnia (when it’s hard to fall asleep or stay asleep), restless leg syndrome (an irresistible urge to move the legs) and sleep apnea (breathing that repeatedly stops and starts, causing low oxygen levels in the blood)—pose additional health problems.
The amount of sleep people get is only one part of the sleep health puzzle, says Dr. Buysse. “The timing and regularity of sleep are also important. The same amount of sleep at the wrong time of day is associated with poor health outcomes. Studies in young people and adults show that a variable day-to-day sleep pattern, regardless of how long it is, can also affect health negatively.”
The amount of sleep people get and need changes as a function of age. Infants and young children need the most sleep. Adolescents still need a lot of sleep but face a crisis of sleep loss, says Dr. Buysse. “They are more naturally night owls. At the same time, our schools start classes earlier and earlier. It’s a perfect storm of inadequate sleep in adolescence. It’s important because data that show that short sleep times and earlier school start times are associated with worse standardized test performance, motor vehicle accidents and even with suicide. It’s not a trivial matter.
“As they get older, people get and are capable of less sleep. Older adults are also subject to more sleep disorders and end up with more health conditions and on more medications, which can also adversely affect their sleep. It’s kind of a two-way street.”
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine recently reported that certain racial/ethnic groups experience sleep health disparities. African-Americans are most likely to have sleep duration of fewer than six hours. They are more likely than Whites to have sleep apnea syndrome, poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness. Latinos and Chinese are more likely than Whites to have sleep-disordered breathing and short sleep duration.
What can people do to improve their sleep health? The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend that adults get at least seven hours of sleep on a regular, nightly basis for optimal health. Also, “sleep should be centered in the middle of the night so that the middle of people’s sleep is 3-4 a.m.,” says Dr. Buysse. “People should get regular sleep from day to day. If you have problems with sleepiness or difficulty sleeping at night, see your health care provider because your problems could be caused by a sleep disorder. For so many years, people thought that snoring was a sign of really deep, good sleep, and it turns out not to be true at all. Snoring can be a serious sign of sleep apnea.
“Sleep seems like something that’s optional. But we have a lot of research showing that sleep is critical to our health and well-being.”