Seems like simple logic, however the hidden ingredient in good health seems to be the obvious, SLEEP! Impossible to comprehend for a Get it to Go culture. New research findings run in stark contradiction to the complex mind, ever probing for unknown answers into our mysterious human existence.
Too little sleep has become a health nightmare for many Americans.
Chronic sleep loss making us fatter and sicker, CDC warns.
Late-night TV watching, Internet surfing contributes largely to our sleepless indulgences.
And all this sleeplessness can be a nightmare for your mental and physical health, CDC experts cautioned, calling sleep loss an under-recognized public health problem.
Troubling statistics, sleep experts say chronic sleep loss is associated with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cardiovascular disease, depression, cigarette smoking and excessive drinking.
The CDC surveyed 19,589 adults in four states. Ten percent reported they did not get enough sleep or rest every single day of the prior month, and 38 percent said they did not get enough in seven or more days in the prior month.
The CDC survey was conducted in New York, Hawaii, Delaware and Rhode Island, asking people how many days in the prior month they got insufficient rest or sleep, without asking specifically how many hours they slept.
But the CDC released nationwide data collected separately showing that across all age groups, the percentage of adults reporting sleeping six hours or fewer a night increased from 1985 to 2006.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends adults get seven to nine hours of sleep a night. Children ages 5 to 12 should get nine to 11 hours and those 11 to 17 need 8-1/2 to 9-1/2 hours.
Today 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from chronic sleep loss and sleep disorders in a country of 300 million.
Darrel Drobnich, National Sleep Foundation chief executive officer, added that several thousand people die on U.S. roads yearly in accidents involving drowsy drivers.
“Americans are definitely sleep deprived. They don’t get the amount that even they say that they want,” Drobnich said.
Well now, the facts are in my fellow insomniacs.
Now, go to sleep!
