Would you mind contemplating about those shadows beneath your eyes? Do you know the consequences of sleep deprivation?
Matthew Walker, professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and founder and director of the Center for Human Sleep Science, stated in an interview with The Guardian how sleep deprivation affects one’s health.
During the four years and a half writing his book, ‘Why We Sleep,’ Walker talked about the effects of sleep loss, recommending eight hours a night, and everything in between.
Lack of sleep may lead to Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and poor mental health, according to Walker.
“It sinks down into every possible nook and cranny. And yet no one is doing anything about it. Things have to change: in the workplace and our communities, our homes and families. But when did you ever see an NHS poster urging sleep on people? When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritized, even incentivized,” he said on the interview.
He also added that sleep loss costs the UK economy to lose revenue over 2% of GDP a year.
But why exactly we lack sleep? Simple. “First, we electrified the night,” Walker says. “Light is a profound degrader of our sleep. Second, there is the issue of work: not only the porous borders between when you start and finish, but longer commuter times, too. No one wants to give up time with their family or entertainment, so they give up sleep instead.”
Another enemies of sleep are anxiety, and availability of caffeine and alcohol, since we belong in a lonelier, more depressed society.
We have stigmatized sleep with the label of laziness, Walker stated, adding “we want to seem busy, and one way we express that is by proclaiming how little sleep we’re getting. It’s a badge of honor.”
He shared one of his experiences in his lectures, “people will wait behind until there is no one around and then tell me quietly: ‘I seem to be one of those people who need eight or nine hours’ sleep.’ It’s embarrassing to say it in public. They would rather wait 45 minutes for the confessional. They’re convinced that they’re abnormal.”
Society thinks people who sleep a lot as slothful. Humans are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason.
No one. That is the rate of people who survive on five hours or less of sleep.
“Yes. I give myself a non-negotiable eight-hour sleep opportunity every night, and I keep very regular hours: if there is one thing I tell people, it’s to go to bed and to wake up at the same time every day, no matter what. I take my sleep incredibly seriously because I have seen the evidence,” Walker said.
Less than five hours of sleep is linked to cancer of the bowel, prostate and breast, the natural killer cells, which attack the cancer cells that appear in your body every day, drop by 70%.
Numerous studies show that night-time shift work and the disruption to daily sleep increase the chances of developing cancers including breast, prostate, endometrium and colon.
World Health Organization has classed any form of night-time shift work as a probable carcinogen.
Adults aged 45 years or older who sleep less than six hours a night are 200% more prone to heart attack or stroke in their lifetime, and increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Lack of sleep also steal body’s control of blood sugar, cells become less responsive to insulin resulting to prediabetes.
Moreover, shorter sleep leads weight gain.
“I’m not going to say that the obesity crisis is caused by the sleep-loss epidemic alone,” Walker said.
“It’s not. However, processed food and sedentary lifestyles do not adequately explain its rise. Something is missing. It’s now clear that sleep is that third ingredient,” he added.
In addition, Walker also suggests that dreaming is a soothing balm. We sleep to remember and to forget. The part when we start dreaming during sleep is a therapeutic state which we eliminate the emotional charge of our experiences, making them easier to bear. Thus, lack of sleep affects our mood in general.
In children, insufficient sleep has been linked to aggressiveness and bullying, while suicidal thought in adolescents.
‘Too much sleep’ is still unclear, however Walker clarified that 14 hours of sleep is too much.
“There is no good evidence at the moment. But I do think 14 hours is too much. Too much water can kill you, and too much food, and I think ultimately the same will prove to be true for sleep.”
Without sleep, there is low energy and disease. With sleep, there is vitality and health. In short, the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life.
By the way, sleeping pills intake should be avoided as it has harmful effect on memory.
So, what should we do? First, avoid pulling “all-nighters”, at our desks or on the dancefloor, 19 hours of being awake can be compared to being drunk. Second, start thinking about sleep as a kind of work. “People use alarms to wake up,” Walker said. “So why don’t we have a bedtime alarm to tell us we’ve got half an hour, that we should start cycling down?” | (Angelica Bobiles – PTV)