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One in Ten Americans Are Chronically Sleep Deprived
WirePosted writes "A CDC research study released this past week indicates that the physical and mental health of many Americans is being adversely affected by a lack of sleep. According to the study, a part of the organization's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, one in ten US citizens are consistently failing to get enough sleep every night. Almost 40% of the people surveyed didn't get enough sleep for more than a week every month. The article notes that this trend can have far-ranging implications for health beyond simple fatigue."
Oh, the delicious amusement that struck me at seeing this article about sleep deprivation appear at 3:30AM (Pacific time zone, United States).
In all seriousness, despite being a major geek (I'm posted to slashdot at 3am on a Sunday, that should be geek-cred enough!), I decided to get rid of my HDTV (and in fact, stop watching TV alltogether) as an experiment. Although I miss The Daily Show, Colbert, and a few others, I've found I actually prefer not having it.. and as a rather shocking side effect, I actually keep better hours now. Suddenly I realized that the insomnia I've had since I was 13 or so, is at least in large part, related to certain stimuli. TV being one of them. As you can probably tell by the fact that I'm awake at 3:30AM on a Sunday, the Internet is an even bigger culprit.. and I'm in the process of working out how I can dial back its hold on me.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
People not getting to bed early enough; film at 11.
I for one welcome our... *blink* our sleep-depri... *yawn* sleep-deprived overl... *bigyawn* overlor... *snore*
Sucks not being able to fall asleep when you want to.
...you insensitive clod!
Now I'm going to be up all night worrying about if I get enough sleep or not.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
You mean some people get 6 or 7 hours of sleep a night? I guess we are turning into a country of slackers.
150 channels, billions of internet pages, consoles, text messages, MMOs. Gone are the days when there was nothing to watch at 11:00 but the local news, leaving sex and reading (both good for sleep) as one's final options for the night. TFA mentions shift work, which seems rather off the mark, as much "shift work" went overseas to China with our industrial base.
.)
Our sleep deprivation, I would hazard to guess, is mostly voluntary (or semi-voluntary.) And overall it's not such a bad thing -- our time is short, and who can blame us for resenting the hours lost to sleep?
(And it's 5:00 a.m. and I really wish I could sleep. Stupid new Wii and its evil bowling . . .
Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog . . .
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
1 in 5 Americans visit slashdot.
Joking aside, workaholism leads to lack of sleep which may lead to chronic fatigue and depression.
Perhaps that is part of the reason why we americans do not rate very highly on the global happiness scale.
Think about it.
- The Twenty-Four Hour Society: Understanding Human Limits in a World That Never Sleeps by Martin Moore-Ede
He's also written several other books having to do with sleep and circadian rhythm.Among the anecdotes in the book are an account of a coast-to-coast airplane crew who put the plane on autopilot then all fell asleep. The plane, loaded with passengers, overshot the destination and was a hundred miles out to sea before air traffic control was able to wake them over the radio.
Also, the author was paid a visit by a Secret Service agent - the people who guard the life of the US President. It seems they were expected to stay on the same shift, in local time, no matter where in the world the President went. That is, if they work 9 to 5 Washington time, then fly to Iraq, say - where the president has visited a couple times - they are expected to then work 9 to 5 Iraqi time, without taking any time to get used to the time zone change. The agent who consulted the author felt that their constant exhaustion that resulted put the President's life at risk.
My own experience includes, at my very first salaried programming job, where I wasn't paid very much and didn't get overtime pay, I was regularly expected to work twenty-hour days and once worked a twenty-nine hour day.
When I was self-employed as a software consultant, quite often I'd work twenty hour days trying to make a milestone so I could get paid. Several times, when times were really hard, I worked forty-hour "days".
Employers of salaried employees seem to feel quite justified in requiring their employees to work without enough sleep. I'd like to see legislation passed that forbids this. Even if your paid work isn't safety-critical, going without sleep needlessly puts lives at risk when you drive your car home. People are killed all the time when drivers fall asleep at the wheel.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I considered getting rid of my TV because I was staying up late watching the late night shows after a few solid hours of prime time TV watching...but technology saved me.
I bought a DVR for my computer and recorded shows onto my computer and put them on my mp3 player to watch while commuting and at work when I was bored. Time shifting shows allows me to get the sleep I need.
Wow, way to turn an article about sleep deprivation into a political diatribe. First of all, neither I nor any of my coworkers kill anyone. We are intelligence analysts, providing strategic guidance to GEN Petraeus. Second, I resent the implication that killing people leads to damaging a person mentally. Just because you disaprove of it doesn't mean it's on par with brain damage to those who choose to serve our country. Third, you obviously have NO concept of what is going in here so try to keep your uninformed opinions to yourself in the future.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
... month long vacations like in some european countries.
And to think how the dollar is falling against the euro.... go figure...
I've *made* employees go home and sleep during busy projects. Not only don't I want to risk their health, but why would I want half asleep zombies working for me? Balancing personal and professional life can be delicate these days, but a good manager knows how to keep his people productive and as happy as possible.
I agree that there needs to be something done. I am loathe to have the Government get involved in our lives anymore than they already are, but you may be right that there needs to be some kind of regulation as to how long you can work an employee, be they salaried or not.
As Americans don't even rate in the Top Ten Worldwide for frequency, according to the folks at Durex (and they should know!).
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
Staying awake with the kids is my number one issue....basically I have to stay awake longer than them and basically get up with them.
Of course there are activities that I want to do that I can't when the kids are awake...so I end up staying awake longer just to do them....heck...last night I stayed up to watch the first volume of Death Note on DVD. I can't exactly let my 7 or 4 year olds see something that is rated for >=14yr olds.
Wash, rise, repeat....= lack of sleep.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
Hehe, that would get me fired since I'm supposed to start at 7:00. But wait ! That would give me more time to sleep... but nothing to eat.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
This gets exacerbated if one of your kids is a real early bird (would like to get up at 5:30 am), and the other one is a night owl (goes to sleep at 11 pm, but wakes up at 9 am).
Very informative data! I live in Japan and know that people don't sleep much here, but still, less than five percent of the people sleep for eight hours or more!
In Japan, sleep deprivation is practically the national pastime -- may office workers, myself included for several years, can't sleep eight hours per day even if they climb into the futon the moment they get home from work. When you've got an hour-long commute and a 14-hour work day, this is what happens. Japanese husbands are often called inconsiderate pigs who only say three words to their wives when they get home: furo (bath), meshi (food), and neru (sleep). The problem is not that they're rude -- they're so exhausted that that's all they have the energy to say!
My co-workers think I'm hopelessly lazy for wanting to sleep eight hours or more every day to keep my brain sharp -- they suggested sleeping in the nine minutes between getting on the train and changing lines!
Yes, you're expected to be able to sleep in any position, in any environment. I supposed people with their level of chronic sleep deprivation can indeed fall asleep anywhere.
Fortunately in my own situation, I got placed on the overnight shift. Now I have to endure sleeping in daylight, but at least I get eight hours or more every day!
Sleep needs to be respected. You wouldn't try to live on 300 calories a day, would you? Even prisoners aren't treated that badly. So why are companies permitted to do comparable things to people's sleep?
*slurp* What are these? What is this "bed" you speak of? What is this "sleep" everyone here keeps talking about? *slurp* And you do this when? At night? *slurp* Shouldn't you guys be doing something productive?
*slurp*
Mmmmmm....coffee!
*slurp*
My blog
In this day and age it seems as if most people exist on six hours a night, with eight being a luxury, and greater than that considered lazy. Unfortunately for me, I have narcolepsy (though fortunately the kind sans cataplexy). Six hours of sleep for me is no more than a tease, and more often I'd be better off just trying to stay up. Eight hours for me is how I'd imagine six hours would feel for someone normal: enough to make you feel as if you had slept, without being refreshing in any meaningful way. My body simply does not function well on less than ten hours sleep. On the weekends I've slept as much as sixteen hours a day (depending how much sleep I got during the weekdays). This would not be so bad if it were not for all the horrible life effects that sleeping as much as this has. I essentially can not have what normal people consider a social life. My wife feels like she hardly sees me. A friend of mine will ask me to go play some pool or something and I never end up going because I get ribbed for being an "old man" for NEEDING to go to bed by 10 or 11 PM on a WEEKEND. Anything greater would throw off my sleep schedule for the following week. I did find some nice medicine that helped GREATLY (only needed the normal 7-8 hours a night like anyone else!) but is unfortunately not covered by my insurance, and is thus out of my financial reach. (As an aside, you think software patents are bad? You should see the harm caused by some pharmacological patents. See that article for some detail). The alternative medication, that is covered, amounts to little more than legal meth which turns me into a zombie who doesn't need his sleep as much, but am otherwise intolerable. So be happy with your 6-8 hours, it could be worse.
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
but there are so many teach yourself in 24 hour books so i can learn everything but feel a little sleepy. maybe they could make the chapters longer and reduce it to teach yourself in 18 hours so i can get a little sleep.
Only one in ten Americans have children?
There seems to be a non-trivial correlation between lack of sleep and overweight.
I think I read first about this sometime around the late 90's or early 2000's, and it seems logical: when you're overtired, your body reacts much as it does to starvation - increasing your appetite AND squirreling away calories (as fat) for the anticipated energy shortage.
Experimenting as much as my job & family will allow, I find that if I get sufficient sleep - go to sleep when I'm tired, get up when I wake up, always try to get at LEAST 8 hours (I typically get 5-6 hours)...I've found that I slowly start shedding pounds without significantly changing my eating habits. Not insignificantly, I seem to FEEL better generally (although that of course could be placebo).
But I can never manage that in "real" life for any extended time - hour commute, 9-10 hour work days - so, like most Americans I try to shoehorn in sleep 'when possible' and have to accept that I'll have this tiny 'lack of sleep' headache, and a bit of a gut, forever.
-Styopa
Let me guess, you don't have kids, do you?
;-) I get to work on my computer without my son pestering me to play TuxPaint or the baby whining because I'm not playing with him. My wife gets to knit without worrying about what the kids are up to. We get to watch TV that doesn't involve blue puppies or animated bunnies (Max & Ruby).
Here's my situation. I have a 4 year old and a 9 month old. The 4 year old is great about getting to bed on time (around 7pm) and pretty much stays asleep all night... until about 5:45 am when he wakes up. This is, of course, 15-30 minutes before my alarm goes off on weekdays. Not enough time to go back to sleep, but enough time to feel the lack of enough sleep.
My 9 month old, on the other hand, tends to be ready for some "daddy play time" around 7pm until around 8pm. We get him into his crib and he's good until around 11pm. That's when my wife and I typically go to bed, but that's also when he tends to fuss. He'll spit out his pacifier, then whine about not having it. If we don't get in there quickly, find the pacifier (tough to do in the dark sometimes), and plop it back in his mouth soon enough, he'll go into full cry mode and wake up his big brother (they sleep in the same room). Once he has the pacifier in his mouth, he relaxes and goes back to sleep... until he relaxes so much that the pacifier pops out again. Repeat this until I take him out and rock him (which seems to put him in a deep enough sleep sometimes) or until we take him into our bed.
From 8pm until 11pm is when we get to do "adult" activities. No, not that!
The net effect is that we don't get to sleep until around midnight or later. Then we wake up at 5am. If you mix in a sick child (as our youngest one has been for the past few weeks), then you get even less sleep.
I won't even elaborate on the night (not many weeks ago) when our youngest had a febrile seizure, stopped breathing for awhile, and wound up in the hospital for a few days. We actually went about 36 hours without any sleep (for obvious reasons). (He's ok now... we think.)
The point is, kids are unpredictable, especially babies. Though you can try to impose a schedule and can be mostly successful, you can't expect them to fully adhere to your schedule. Things will happen that muck up those schedules. In addition, activities that *you* want to do (web development, coding, etc) are going to take a back seat to Candy Land and Blue's Clues until the kids are asleep. Then you either try to cram 5 hours of grown-up activities into 2 hours or you wind up giving up some of the things you like. Still, I wouldn't give up my kids for anything.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
"Well, the first solution would be not to screw up your life by having kids... obviously."
Too bad your parents didn't figure that out in time.
Humm. Let's see having kids watching vs Death Note....
Well in your case you have probably made the right choice.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I watch the late night shows in the privacy of my home, the stuff I'm watching and want to do definitely would not be permitted on a bus! ;-)
Actually, I think there's a pretty good case to be made that killing people does lead to mental damage. PTSD is rarely caused by revulsion or shock by one's own acts. It's generally caused by events that scare the crap out of you. In other words, it's nearly being killed by others that damages you, not killing them instead. Humans are generally better adapted to inflicting horrors on others than having them inflicted on themselves.
Some people can eat nothing but cheese and meat and sugar and have low cholesterol and low triglycerides. I wouldn't advise it for everybody.
Some people can go for years without seeing a dentist and end up with no cavities when they do finally visit. I wouldn't advise it for everybody.
Some people smoke 3 packs a day and live to be 90 years old. I wouldn't advise it for everybody.
Just because Margaret Thatcher could go for long periods with little sleep without falling apart doesn't mean that the rule of 7-9 hours for most people is wrong. People who try to refute rules that DO well apply almost everyone you'll ever meet by pointing out lone examples where they may not apply are doing nothing but trying to shout down useful guides for us mortal humans who aren't winners of the genetic lottery. Exceptions-driven rules are pointless when the simpler rule applies to 99.9% of the population.
So, Margaret Thatcher may be able to work on 3-4 hours per night, but I think you can guess what I'd say to that.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
the article refers to *North*americans, *Central*americans or *South*americans? I am chilean (therefore, I *am* american) and we do not have the sleep problem over here.
Yes, I RTFA, so be kind and note the sarcasm.
Yes! Thank you for pointing this out. You are absolutely correct. I have never killed anyone, but I have issues with certain things as a result of being shot AT. I think I might have issues from not being ABLE to shoot back. I have talked with other vets (Air Force usually, from Vietnam) who have the same issues. The total lack of control, the randomness of it, the powerlessness... It's a crap situation under any circumstances.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
We turned our cable service off and returned the DVR at the end of last years Formula 1 season because that was pretty much all we watched on TV (all the kids stuff we buy on DVD or get from iTunes) but I'll tell ya, watching the European races live really hurts when you're on Pacific Time:
1. Set the alarm for 3:30AM
2. Cook full English breakfast
3. Start drinking beer if Kimi is winning.
4. Go to sleep ready for normal life
With the 2008 season a week away from firing back into action I'm seriously considering staying TV/Cable free, not just because of sleep disorientation every two weeks but because the channel that carries it - SpeedTV - sucks so bad. They push ads for NASCAR and crummy Reality TV shows down your eyes constantly.
As soon as the F1 folks realize there's a market for live streaming and/or downloadable HD F1 races the better.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From my Slashdot journal:
Defenestrate: to throw out of a window.
Therefore could Fenestrate be defined as putting it back in?
Could the same rule be applied to "Defecate"? Or is "fecation" simply the act of eating, in which case, I should invite my next date to "fecate" at a fancy restaurant?
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang