Sleeping "enough" Keeps You Alive

By Author: Steven Johnson
Total Articles: 494
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There's something wonderfully vicious about newspapers. They take a piece of research, read its summary to give them a complete grasp of what it says, and then they write a headline to grab your attention. You know the kind of thing. Coma Man wakes after fifteen years and demands ovaltine. Well, that would just paint a picture in your mind, tempting you into reading the story of a man who slowly returned to consciousness over a period of days and, through feeble sign language, asked for some warm flavored milk. The reference to ovaltine is paid-for product placement, worth far more than an ad because it's more real. Well, here's what would be a true headline, Not sleeping enough is bad for your health. In reality, the headline writers shouted that a shortage of sleep was linked to early death. Now that really grabbed your attention, didn't it! So what's the truth of it all?

The source of this scare story is a piece of meta-research. That's research which re-examines and consolidates the work done in multiple trials and research papers published over the last twenty-five years or so. In this case, the total number of people ...
... participating in the sixteen source trials was 1.5 million — a statistically significant number of people — and the length of time to monitor health outcomes enabled the current researchers to make comprehensive findings. The results are interesting because they show there is a fairly narrow band of healthy sleep. People who sleep less than the average six to eight hours per night are 12% more likely to die over the twenty-five year period than those who sleep the average amount. The same is true for those who sleep longer. The reason for this second finding is that increased time asleep is generally associated with poor underlying health. Overall, more than 100,000 people died during the period covered, albeit from many different causes including accidents.

The other trend identified is that people now sleep less. There's more pressure for people to work longer. This applies to both the employed and the self-employed. More time is taken up in commuting and, in addition to family commitments, television, games and other distractions delay going to sleep. Put all these environmental factors together, and a larger percentage of the working population are being pushed towards a more dangerous lack of sleep. Although those who find it difficult to get to sleep or stay asleep throughout the night can turn to ambien as the guaranteed way of ensuring a reasonable number of hours asleep, this is not a good longer term solution. Using sleeping pills does not give you more hours for sleeping. This requires you to make lifestyle changes to ensure there's an adequate period set aside only for sleep. Indeed, if you are forced to wake too early after taking ambien, the active drug is still in your bloodstream and you will feel excessively tired. This does not help you if you have to drive to work, nor does it help you to perform well at work. A failure to make lifestyle changes is likely to increase stress and encourage more serious insomnia. This makes it all the more important not to buy ambien online and self-medicate. You should take proper medical advice on how to stay healthy and avoid becoming a headline in an early death story.