NEED MORE SLEEP?

Do you feel like you need more sleep? Does it often take you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep at night? Or do you wake up frequently during the night? Or too early in the morning Have a hard time going back to sleep? When you awaken, do you feel groggy and lethargic? Do you feel drowsy during the day particularly during monotonous situations?

If you answered “yes” to any one of these questions, you may have a “sleep debt”. And, you aren’t alone. A recent NSF poll found that a majority of American adults experience problems. However, few recognize the importance of adequate rest. Or are aware that effective methods of preventing and managing sleep problems.

Why Do You Need It?

Sleep is not merely a “time out” from our busy routines. It is essential for good health, mental and emotional functioning and safety. For instance, researchers have found that people with chronic insomnia are more likely than others to develop several kinds of psychiatric problems, and are likely to make greater use of healthcare services.

People suffering from a disorder called sleep apnea are at risk for high blood pressure, heart attacks, stroke and motor vehicle crashes if left untreated.

Even occasional sleeping problems can make daily life feel more stressful or cause you to be less productive. Those who said they had trouble getting enough sleep reported a greater difficulty concentrating, accomplishing required tasks and handling minor irritations. Sleep loss has been found to impair the ability to perform tasks involving memory, learning, and logical reasoning. This may contribute to mistakes or unfulfilled potential at school or on the job and strained relationships at home. In fact, sleeplessness has been found to be a significant predictor of absenteeism.

Insufficient sleep can also be extremely dangerous, leading to serious or even fatal accidents. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has estimated more than 100,000 auto crashes annually are fatigue related. These drowsy driving crashes cause more than 1,500 deaths and tens of thousands of injuries and lasting disabilities. This problem has been found to affect drivers aged 25 or under more than any other age group.

How Much Is Enough?

Needs vary. In general, most healthy adults need seven to nine hours a night. However, some individuals are able to function without sleepiness or drowsiness after as little as six hours . Others can’t perform at their peak unless they’ve slept ten hours. Contrary to common myth, the need for it doesn’t decline with age.

So, how do you measure how much you truly need? If you have trouble staying alert during boring or monotonous situations you probably aren’t getting enough good-quality sleep. Other signs are a tendency to be unreasonably irritable with co-workers, family or friends, and difficulty concentrating or remembering facts.

Is Is All The Same?

It may surprise you to learn that during the hours you seem to be “out cold,” a lot is actually happening. Normal sleepers have a relatively predictable “sleep architecture,” the term used to describe an alternating pattern of REM (rapid-eye-movement) and non-REM sleep. REM sleep is when you dream, and is characterized by a high level of mental and physical activity. In fact, your heart rate, blood pressure and breathing are similar to what you experience when you are awake.

Scientists define the best sleep as having the right mix of REM and non-REM. Getting enough without interruptions from your environment or from internal factors such as your breathing is more likely to maintain your natural sleep architecture and result in restful and restorative sleep.

Being overweight increases the risk for sleep apnea.

What are the biggest “Sleep Stealers”?

Psychological Factors

Stress is considered by most experts to be the No. 1 cause of short-term sleeping difficulties. Common triggers include school- or job-related pressures, a family or marriage problem, and a serious illness or death in the family. Usually the problem disappears when the stressful situation passes. However, if short-term sleep problems such as insomnia aren’t managed properly from the beginning, they can persist long after the original stress has passed.

That’s why it’s a good idea to talk to a physician about any sleeping problem that recurs or persists for longer than one week.

Your doctor can help you take steps early to control or prevent poor sleep. Insomnia can also be brought on by depression, evaluation by a healthcare professional is essential.

Lifestyle Stressors

Without realizing it, you may be doing things during the day or night that can work against getting a good night’s sleep. These include drinking alcohol or beverages containing caffeine in the afternoon or evening, exercising close to bedtime, following an irregular morning and nighttime schedule, and working or doing other mentally intense activities right before or after getting into bed.

Shift Work

If you are among the 17 percent of employees in the United States who are shift workers, sleep may be particularly elusive. Shift work forces you to try to sleep when activities around you — and your own “biological rhythms” — signal you to be awake. One study shows that shift workers are two to five times more likely than employees with regular, daytime hours to fall asleep on the job.

Jet Lag

Still another stealer is jet lag, an inability to sleep caused when you travel across several time zones and your biological rhythms get “out of sync.”

Environmental Interferences

A distracting environment such as a room that’s too hot or cold, too noisy or too brightly lit can be a barrier to sound sleep. And interruptions from children or other family members can also disrupt it. Other influences to pay attention to are the comfort and size of your bed and the habits of your partner. If you have to lie beside someone who has different preferences, snores, can’t fall or stay asleep, or has other sleep difficulties, it often becomes your problem too!

Physical Factors

A number of physical problems can interfere with your ability to fall or stay asleep. For example, arthritis and other conditions that cause pain, backache, or discomfort can make it difficult to sleep well. Sleep apnea, causes brief awakenings (often unnoticed) and excessive daytime sleepiness. If suspected, a person having signs of sleep apnea should see a doctor.

Disorders that cause involuntary limb movements during sleep, such as Restless Legs Syndrome, break up the normal pattern and are also likely to make sleep less refreshing and result in daytime sleepiness.

For women, pregnancy and hormonal shifts including those that cause premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or menopause and its accompanying hot flashes can also intrude on sleep.

Medications

In addition, certain medications such as decongestants, steroids and some medicines for high blood pressure, asthma, or depression can cause sleeping difficulties as a side effect.

So, What’s The Secret To Good Sleep?

When Do You Need to Seek Help?

See your your doctor is your problems persist for longer than a week and are bothersome. Or if sleepiness interferes with the way you feel or function during the day. You might want to keep a diary of your habits for about ten days. It can help you document your problem in a way that your physician can best understand.

If the problem is the time it takes to fall asleep, staying asleep or waking up unrefreshed, your doctor may recommend lifestyle changes or behavioral approaches to treating the problem. However, lifestyle changes alone may not be enough. Treating insomnia with medication is the most common treatment for these sleep problems. Use medication only used until the immediate stressor is under control or lifestyle changes have had a chance to work.

Take over-the-counter medicine with caution. Your physician or pharmacist can help inform you about the different types of medications available. Don’t use alcohol as a sleep aid.

For sleep apnea or other disorders, your doctor may want to do a sleep study. This will provide more information about your sleep pattern and whether you are breathing regularly while you sleep.

The bottom line is this: Adequate sleep is as essential to health and peak performance as exercise and good nutrition. If you aren’t getting enough, talk to your physician. You deserve it.