Life Blog #2
As people who usually draw a very thin line between work and leisure, we are all worried about our sleep. The trouble starts when that line becomes more and more blurred. It is commonly said among the scientists that anything less than 7 hours of sleep is sleep deprivation. They also advocate for the fact that there is strong correlation between how much people sleep and how long they live.
The fundamental flaw is that most of us equate sleep with laziness. All of us want to seem busy, be it work or in personal life. Sitting late at the office for no reason, gazing into the computer for long hours, hitting that late night movie show and proudly saying how less we are sleeping are some of the things that we do to substantiate it. It is much like a fake crown or cape that we wear to project ourselves for reasons only we know. Probably Humans are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason.
Why exactly are we so sleep deprived? It is estimated that 1 in 2 people gets only 6 hours or less sleep in the present times. The reasons seem to be quite simple though. First, its got everything to do with work. After regular working hours, there is overtime to meet the deadlines and some important works and then of course there is the kiss-ass extra hours as well. All of this takes the working time to well over 10 hours. And then, since nobody wants to give up time with the family, you would probably go for that late night show coupled with a calorie rich dinner too. And when anxiety and work pressure mounts up what do you do? Well there is always alcohol and caffeine, right! In all the aforementioned cases, your sleep and eventually your body takes a toll for it.
Let us have a look at some of the studies by Sleep Science Department, University of California, Berkeley.
> Lets start with how sleep affects our immune system. Reduce sleep even for a single night and our immune system takes the hit instantly. What does the body yearn for when you catch a cold or fever? You would want to sleep yourselves off for long hours to recuperate.
> In one of the studies, adults who are 45 and older that slept 6 hours or less each night were 200% more susceptible to having a heart attack or stroke during their life time when compared to those who slept 8 hours or more.
> Sleeping less hours is also associated with increased weight gain and developing Alzheimer's disease. It has got everything to do with a toxic protein that is deposited in the brain and which is not cleaned by the body's immune system when subjected to very less rest periods. This over the time attacks the brain cells that leads to Alzheimer's disease.
> Adults sleeping less that 7 hours are predicted to live only till early 60's without medical aid
> A 2013 study report states that men who slept too little has 30% lesser sperm count when compared to others
> While driving a car with less than 6 hours of sleep, you are 4.3 times more likely to be involved in a car crash
> There are more than 100 diagnosed sleep disorders out of which insomnia is the most common.
> Lack of sleep is linked with bowel, prostrate and breast cancer. Even a single day of 4-5 hours of sleep reduces your cancer killing cell's count by about 70%.
> Sleeping lesser hours also reduces the body's control of blood sugar.
Having discussed all of the above, let us also run through what deep sleep is.
We sleep in 90-minute cycles and we dive into deep sleep only towards the end of each one of these. Each cycle has two components. First, the NERM - Non-rapid eye movement sleep where the brain waves are in sync and vast amount of memory processing is being done. The body then settles into the very low state of energy which is the best blood-pressure medicine ever. Second, the REM - Rapid eve movement sleep where the brain functions much similar to when we are awake. The heart and nervous system also go through spurts of activity. You would be wrong to think that one such 90-minute cycle is enough and hence power naps wont do you any good. Maybe it can give you some energy from yesterday's sleepless night and that's pretty much about it. Ideally you would need 4-5 such cycles.
One can easily tell if a person is sleep deprived if they are sleeping with the alarms on and taking too much caffeine all through out the day.
So what can one do? Well for a start, avoid long hours at the office and pulling all-nighter's. It is a fact that your company wants to get the most out of you because organizations exists for profits and that's all to it. You work long hours on weekdays, on weekends, on holidays and to top it all up, you take work home. Take a moment and think whether its really worth it, talk to your bosses about it and how the long hours is affecting your work-life balance and more importantly your health. How many companies pay you for overtime, for your health expenses, how many companies actually care about you and your personal life? Food for thought I suppose.
Stop going for those late night movies loaded with a calorie fest afterwards. Take sleep seriously. Alarms can work both ways you know, why not have an alarm that reminds you to go to bed? That could be interesting. Maybe schools can consider starting late since such delays correlate with improved IQ's. Even companies can think about rewarding sleep. Productivity, motivation, creativity and even honesty would rise. Keep those light emitting devices away from your bedroom. Studies have shown that the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin is greatly affected by LED devices.
Our health and well-being is entirely up to us and sleeping whether you like it or not (yes it has come to that) plays an important part in it. Let's try to sleep top priority at least from today.
Scientific findings: From Mathew Walker's (Director, Center for Human Sleep Science, University of California, Berkeley) study on Human Sleep Science.
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