The sleep doctors are coming and they want you to go to bed. On time. Tonight. Every night. Or else.
They want doctors to add a single question to routine checks of vital signs like body temperature, pulse, blood pressure and rate of breathing. The question is: How did you sleep?
If you’re like most people, probably not well, or at least not enough.
Coffee-fuelled North Americans, with our smartphones at our bedsides, are sleeping, on average, nearly two hours less than we were 40 years ago, when most people slept 8½ hours or more. More and more people are being diagnosed with sleep apnea, a disorder in which breathing is disrupted during sleep. And insomnia, which affects about 10 per cent of the population, is no longer considered merely a symptom of other medical or psychiatric problems but has been classified as a full-fledged disorder in its own right.
The scientific evidence is mounting that getting less than the recommended seven to nine hours of nightly sleep is having wide-ranging impacts on our bodies, our minds and, especially, on the health of our children, who need even more sleep: 10 to 11 hours per night.
In March, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared that “insufficient sleep is a public health epidemic.” It released a survey showing that more than 35 per cent of U.S. adults reported getting less than seven hours of sleep a night; 38 per cent reported unintentionally falling asleep at least once during the day in the preceding month.
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