Why You Need a Good Night’s Sleep
We have so many demands on our time—jobs, family, errands—not to mention finding some time to relax. To fit everything in, we often sacrifice sleep. But sleep affects both mental and physical health. It’s vital to your well-being.
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Of course, sleep helps you feel rested each day. But while you’re sleeping, your brain and body don’t just shut down. Internal organs and processes are hard at work throughout the night.
“Sleep services all aspects of our body in one way or another: molecular, energy balance, as well as intellectual function, alertness and mood,” says Dr. Merrill Mitler, a sleep expert and neuroscientist at NIH.
When you’re tired, you can’t function at your best. Sleep helps you think more clearly, have quicker reflexes and focus better. “The fact is, when we look at well-rested people, they’re operating at a different level than people trying to get by on 1 or 2 hours less nightly sleep,” says Mitler.
“Loss of sleep impairs your higher levels of reasoning, problem-solving and attention to detail,” Mitler explains. Tired people tend to be less productive at work. They’re at a much higher risk for traffic accidents. Lack of sleep also influences your mood, which can affect how you interact with others. A sleep deficit over time can even put you at greater risk for developing depression.
But sleep isn’t just essential for the brain. “Sleep affects almost every tissue in our bodies,” says Dr. Michael Twery, a sleep expert at NIH. “It affects growth and stress hormones, our immune system, appetite, breathing, blood pressure and cardiovascular health.”
Research shows that lack of sleep increases the risk for obesity, heart disease and infections. Throughout the night, your heart rate, breathing rate and blood pressure rise and fall, a process that may be important for cardiovascular health. Your body releases hormones during sleep that help repair cells and control the body’s use of energy. These hormone changes can affect your body weight.
“Ongoing research shows a lack of sleep can produce diabetic-like conditions in otherwise healthy people,” says Mitler.
Recent studies also reveal that sleep can affect the efficiency of vaccinations. Twery described research showing that well-rested people who received the flu vaccine developed stronger protection against the illness.
A good night’s sleep consists of 4 to 5 sleep cycles. Each cycle includes periods of deep sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when we dream. “As the night goes on, the portion of that cycle that is in REM sleep increases. It turns out that this pattern of cycling and progression is critical to the biology of sleep,” Twery says.
Although personal needs vary, on average, adults need 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. Babies typically sleep about 16 hours a day. Young children need at least 10 hours of sleep, while teenagers need at least 9 hours. To attain the maximum restorative benefits of sleep, getting a full night of quality sleep is important, says Twery.
Sleep can be disrupted by many things. Stimulants such as caffeine or certain medications can keep you up. Distractions such as electronics—especially the light from TVs, cell phones, tablets and e-readers—can prevent you from falling asleep.
As people get older, they may not get enough sleep because of illness, medications or sleep disorders. By some estimates, about 70 million Americans of all ages suffer from chronic sleep problems. The 2 most common sleep disorders are insomnia and sleep apnea.
People with insomnia have trouble falling or staying asleep. Anxiety about falling asleep often makes the condition worse. Most of us have occasional insomnia. But chronic insomnia—lasting at least 3 nights per week for more than a month—can trigger serious daytime problems such as exhaustion, irritability and difficulty concentrating.
Common therapies include relaxation and deep-breathing techniques. Sometimes medicine is prescribed. But consult a doctor before trying even over-the-counter sleep pills, as they may leave you feeling unrefreshed in the morning.
Why Is Sleep Important
Healthy sleep is essential for optimal health, performance and safety at work. Sleep works for you so that you can perform your best on the job. When you don’t get the recommended seven hours of sleep each night, there can be serious consequences in the workplace.
Sleepiness and fatigue on the job can cause reduced productivity. A lack of sleep is also a threat to workplace safety due to increased errors and accidents. These problems can result in higher costs for employers. Sleep and alertness problems are common in shift workers and people who work long hours or multiple jobs. It is important for employers to make healthy sleep a top priority among their workforce.
Sleep plays a vital role in good health and well-being throughout your life. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety.
The way you feel while you’re awake depends in part on what happens while you’re sleeping. During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function and maintain your physical health. In children and teens, sleep also helps support growth and development.
The damage from sleep deficiency can occur in an instant (such as a car crash), or it can harm you over time. For example, ongoing sleep deficiency can raise your risk for some chronic health problems. It also can affect how well you think, react, work, learn, and get along with others.
Healthy Brain Function and Emotional Well-Being
Sleep helps your brain work properly. While you’re sleeping, your brain is preparing for the next day. It’s forming new pathways to help you learn and remember information.
Studies show that a good night’s sleep improves learning. Whether you’re learning math, how to play the piano, how to perfect your golf swing, or how to drive a car, sleep helps enhance your learning and problem-solving skills. Sleep also helps you pay attention, make decisions, and be creative.
Studies also show that sleep deficiency alters activity in some parts of the brain. If you’re sleep deficient, you may have trouble making decisions, solving problems, controlling your emotions and behavior, and coping with change. Sleep deficiency also has been linked to depression, suicide, and risk-taking behavior.
Children and teens who are sleep deficient may have problems getting along with others. They may feel angry and impulsive, have mood swings, feel sad or depressed, or lack motivation. They also may have problems paying attention, and they may get lower grades and feel stressed.
Sleep and Physical Health
Sleep plays an important role in your physical health. For example, sleep is involved in healing and repair of your heart and blood vessels. Ongoing sleep deficiency is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
Sleep deficiency also increases the risk of obesity. For example, one study of teenagers showed that with each hour of sleep lost, the odds of becoming obese went up. Sleep deficiency increases the risk of obesity in other age groups as well.
Sleep helps maintain a healthy balance of the hormones that make you feel hungry (ghrelin) or full (leptin). When you don’t get enough sleep, your level of ghrelin goes up and your level of leptin goes down. This makes you feel hungrier than when you’re well-rested.
Sleep also affects how your body reacts to insulin, the hormone that controls your blood glucose (sugar) level. Sleep deficiency results in a higher than normal blood sugar level, which may increase your risk for diabetes.
Sleep also supports healthy growth and development. Deep sleep triggers the body to release the hormone that promotes normal growth in children and teens. This hormone also boosts muscle mass and helps repair cells and tissues in children, teens, and adults. Sleep also plays a role in puberty and fertility.
Your immune system relies on sleep to stay healthy. This system defends your body against foreign or harmful substances. Ongoing sleep deficiency can change the way in which your immune system responds. For example, if you’re sleep deficient, you may have trouble fighting common infections.
Sleep Affects Daytime Performance
Getting enough quality sleep at the right times helps you function well throughout the day. People who are sleep deficient are less productive at work and school. They take longer to finish tasks, have a slower reaction time, and make more mistakes.
After several nights of losing sleep—even a loss of just 1–2 hours per night—your ability to function suffers as if you haven’t slept at all for a day or two.
Lack of sleep also may lead to microsleep. Microsleep refers to brief moments of sleep that occur when you’re normally awake.
You can’t control microsleep, and you might not be aware of it. For example, have you ever driven somewhere and then not remembered part of the trip? If so, you may have experienced microsleep.
Even if you’re not driving, microsleep can affect how you function. If you’re listening to a lecture, for example, you might miss some of the information or feel like you don’t understand the point. In reality, though, you may have slept through part of the lecture and not been aware of it.
Some people aren’t aware of the risks of sleep deficiency. In fact, they may not even realize that they’re sleep deficient. Even with limited or poor-quality sleep, they may still think that they can function well.
For example, drowsy drivers may feel capable of driving. Yet, studies show that sleep deficiency harms your driving ability as much as, or more than, being drunk. It’s estimated that driver sleepiness is a factor in about 100,000 car accidents each year, resulting in about 1,500 deaths.
Drivers aren’t the only ones affected by sleep deficiency. It can affect people in all lines of work, including health care workers, pilots, students, lawyers, mechanics, and assembly line workers.
As a result, sleep deficiency is not only harmful on a personal level, but it also can cause large-scale damage. For example, sleep deficiency has played a role in human errors linked to tragic accidents, such as nuclear reactor meltdowns, grounding of large ships, and aviation accidents.
Sleep and Productivity
While working late nights might impress your boss, it can impair your work productivity by causing insufficient sleep. Workers who sleep less than seven hours per night have a higher rate of absenteeism. This means that you are more likely to miss time from work.
Sleep-deprived workers also have a higher rate of presenteeism. This means that you show up to work but don’t function at your best. Sleepiness will cause you to feel less motivated and unenergetic. You will have trouble concentrating and making decisions. You also will struggle to think creatively and solve problems.
This lost productivity is a huge loss for employers. A report by the RAND Corporation estimates that the U.S. loses an equivalent of about 1.23 million working days each year due to insufficient sleep.
Sleep and Safety
Lack of sleep impairs your ability to function properly. You are more easily distracted. You also are less likely to detect and correct errors. The impairment caused by sleep loss can be like being drunk. You might even fall asleep on the job.
Sleepy employees are a huge safety risk in the workplace. An estimated 13 percent of workplace injuries can be attributed to sleep problems.
Sleepiness also is a safety threat on our roads. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety estimates that 9.5 percent of all crashes involve drowsiness. Data also suggest that drowsy driving causes 328,000 crashes each year. This includes 6,400 fatal crashes. Get tips to help you stay Awake at the Wheel.
Sleep Recharges You
Shift Work
U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show that about 15 percent of full-time employees in the U.S. perform shift work. Many of them suffer from chronic sleep loss. Shift work disorder occurs when you have trouble adjusting to a work schedule that takes place during hours when you normally would sleep. Workers who are at risk for shift work disorder include:
- Pilots
- Nurses
- Doctors
- Soldiers
- Truck drivers
- Rail operators
- Emergency responders
Employers can improve sleep health for shift workers by implementing these strategies:
- Avoid permanent night-shift schedules
- Assign regular, predictable schedules
- Avoid long shift lengths
- Give employees a voice in their schedule
- Rotate shifts forward when regularly changing shifts
- Provide frequent breaks within shifts
Economic Impact of Sleep Deprivation
RAND estimates that the U.S. economy loses up to $411 billion a year due to sleepiness and fatigue. These losses have a huge impact on employers. The National Safety Council estimates that a typical employer with 1,000 employees can expect to lose more than $1 million each year to fatigue: $272,000 due to absenteeism and $776,000 due to presenteeism.
Employers can discover how much fatigue is costing them by using the Fatigue Cost Calculator. Developed by the National Safety Council, it also estimates how much of these losses can be avoided by implementing workplace programs to improve sleep and alertness.
Workplace Wellness
Employers can help reduce sleepiness and fatigue in the workplace through evidence-based workplace health programs.
Tips to Help Employers address Sleep Health
Learn about sleepiness in the workplace. Understand its costs, its causes and how fatigue can lead to a higher rate of safety incidents.
Educate employees on fatigue, sleep health and sleep disorders. Provide strategies to improve alertness on the job as part of a comprehensive employee wellness program.
Investigate the causes of fatigue in the workplace and implement fatigue risk management as part of a safety management system.
Learn more about the importance of healthy sleep from the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project.
Related
Healthy Sleep Basics – 3 Keys to Healthy Sleep
Sources:
SleepEducation.org
National Heart Lung and Blood Institute
Last Updated on February 19, 2021 by Heather Scott