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Time to 'reclaim the night' for sleep

2009-02-11 06:02:16

By Neil Stanley

Sleep researcher, University of East Anglia

We all know the health risks of smoking, drinking and eating too much. But

sleep expert Neil Stanley says we don't pay attention to the risks of having

too little sleep.

In this week's Scrubbing Up health column, he warns it is time to "reclaim the

night".

Good sleep is vital for good physical mental and emotional health - but

unfortunately we seem to live in a society that has forgotten this fact.

In terms of healthy living, sleep is as important as good diet and exercise.

Poor or inadequate sleep can have serious consequences on overall health and

wellbeing and has been shown to lead to lower immunity, poor performance and

mood changes.

In the longer term, inadequate sleep is associated with a greater risk of a

number of diseases, such as heart disease, depression and diabetes.

There are also important consequences of poor or inadequate sleep which

negatively affect the way we feel and perform during the day.

Round the clock

We are living in an increasingly "tired" society. Think about how you feel at

the moment with one as very tired and 10 as feeling wide awake.

I reckon very few of you are a seven, let alone a 10. Why do we go through life

feeling this tired?

One reason is the increasing extension of the daytime activities into the

night.

When I was growing up in the 1970s, Tomorrow's World each week promised us a

future where, due to advances in technology, there would be so much leisure

time that we would have to come up with new ways of amusing ourselves.

Unfortunately what was created by all this new technology was the 24/7 society.

Technology never sleeps, and thus people can work around the clock - whether

they are in the office or at home.

The long hours, information overload and stresses associated with 21st Century

living negatively affect our sleep which, in turn, is detrimental to our

health, work performance and even our relationships.

Convenience brings risks

As a society we need to give much more serious consideration to our work/life

balance particularly with regards to sleep.

For example it has being estimated that in future a third of the workforce will

be working shifts, mainly in the service sector.

However there is a large body of evidence which shows that working shifts is

bad for health and increases accidents at work.

So, whilst it is of course important for some workers to work around the clock,

does the convenience of paying a bill at 2am really outweigh the health risks

of having so many people doing shifts?

It has been reported that tired drivers now cause more deaths on European roads

than drunk drivers, and yet whilst it has become socially unacceptable to be

drunk behind the wheel or in the workplace it is almost a matter of pride that

we believe we can function properly when tired.

Yet you would not want a drunken surgeon operating on you or a drunken train

driver taking you to work, so why would you accept a tired one?

The problem of poor sleep is perhaps even more important in children as it has

been linked with increased risk of - amongst other things - obesity, diabetes,

poor academic performance and behavioural problems.

You only have to watch an episode of Supernanny to see how profound the

positive effect of a good nights sleep can be on the behaviour of children.

Over the past decade there has been an increasing body of evidence that shows

that sleep plays an important role in regulating weight and controlling

appetite, and so I find it surprising that when earlier this year the

government started its Change 4 Life healthy living campaign there is no

mention of the importance of good sleep.

Isn't it about time we reclaimed the night for sleep?