Lose if you don’t snooze!
We’re all guilty of burning the candle at both ends sometimes, but just how dangerous is sleep deprivation?
Whether it’s work, Netflix or social drinks that keep us from our bed, there’s no doubt that sleep has dramatically dropped from our list of priorities.
But with new stats from the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) revealing that the consequences of cutting down on your kip are a whole lot worse than we imagined, it’s time we took our snooze more seriously. According to the RSPH, Brits lose an average of almost an hour’s shut-eye every night (that’s one night’s sleep every week), which results in physical, mental, behavioural and performance problems, and costs the NHS millions of pounds each year. Despite being a fundamental part of living, one in five Brits suffer from poor sleep – making it the second most common health complaint after pain. In her new book The Sleep Revolution, business mogul Arianna Huffington probes the cause (and costly effects) of the ‘sleep epidemic’ and looks into ways of overcoming it. Struggling to switch your brain off at night? Casting sleep to the sidelines over everything else? Get ready to welcome change, as this book leaves no question unanswered.
TIME TO SWITCH OFF
Much like cheat meals or heavy nights out, we know that missing out on our ZZZS is bad for us – yet we still continue to ignore the sensible voice in our head. Why? The technology boom has meant that we’re working harder, faster and for longer hours than ever before – with less time for much else. ‘Advances in technology have allowed us to pull back the curtain on what’s going on while we sleep, but technology is also one of the main reasons our relationship to this fundamental part of our existence has become so compromised,’ says Arianna in the book. Her words couldn’t ring truer – after all, if it’s not our desktop screens we’re staring at,
‘Brits lose an average of almost an hour’s shuteye every night (that’s one night’s sleep a week), which results in physical and mental problems that cost the NHS millions of pounds each year’
it’s our mobiles for catching up on social media or our laptops for one (or seven) episodes of Game of Thrones. What’s more, the ability to stay switched on is revered in today’s society. Phrases like, ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’ are commonly used and, according to Arianna, these ‘reflect society’s collective delusion that sleep is simply time lost to other pursuits, that it can be endlessly appropriated at will to satisfy our increasingly busy lives and overstuffed to-do lists’. The problem is that we’re prioritising work and our social life, and quality ‘me-time’ is referring to anything other than sleep – despite research all pointing to the fact that it directly affects the time we spend awake.
MORE THAN JUST A KIP
There are many who believe that their bodies can work with – or have become accustomed to – minimal hours of sleep (with some even claiming that they function better during the day). But Arianna references studies to confirm that only one per cent of people in the world possess genes that enable their brain and body to run on just a few hours of sleep without it being harmful. The bottom line is that sleep is a valuable time of ‘intense neurological activity – a rich time of renewal, memory consolidation, brain and neurochemical cleansing, and cognitive maintenance’, says Arianna. And to curb it would be putting your health at serious risk. Sleep deprivation has been linked to a range of life-threatening conditions including heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, obesity and cancer, as well as a reduction in mental ability and cognitive performance.
Studies have also found that it affects our memory capacity, decision-making and creativity, with the performance levels of someone clocking in six hours of sleep per day for two weeks being equivalent to not sleeping for 24 hours. So while you might think that you’re compromising on sleep for the sake of getting ahead at work, you’re better off retiring to bed earlier and starting afresh the next day – because a loss of sleep will add to hours of lost productivity. If alarm bells are ringing, it’s time you put your sleep first and turn off that snooze option for your own good.