A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention revealed that adults in U.S. are not getting enough sleep
each night.
The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report analyzed
data from CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey in four
states – Delaware, Hawaii, New York and Rhode Island including 19,589 adults and
found only one out of three adults said they got enough rest or sleep every day
in the past month.
Ten percent of the people answering the survey 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
survey also revealed that younger adults are more likely than older adults to
report getting too little sleep.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults should
get seven to nine hours of sleep a night, while 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.
The CDC experts blamed late-night TV watching, Internet
surfing and other distractions for the Americans’ unhealthy sleep.
“At night we’re doing everything except for sleeping – we’re
on the Internet, we may be watching TV. With these new lifestyles we have kind
of taken sleep for granted as something that we can do when we have time or we
can catch up on it on the weekends,” CDC behavioral scientist Lela
McKnight-Eily, who led the study, said in a telephone interview with Reuters.
An estimated 50 to 70 million people suffer from constant
sleep loss or sleep disorders, according to CDC. Health experts say chronic
sleep loss is often associated with obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure,
stroke, cardiovascular disease, depression, cigarette smoking, and excessive
drinking.
“We don’t realize that sleep is a vital part of overall
health and that chronic sleep loss is related to both physical and mental health
issues. It’s getting worse,” McKnight-Eily said.
She also made some recommendations for those people who are
short on sleep, which include sticking to a regular sleep schedule, sleeping in
a dark, well-ventilated space at a comfortable temperature, avoiding
stimulating activities within two hours of bedtime, avoiding caffeine,
nicotine, and alcohol in the evening, avoiding going to bed on a full or empty
stomach. If any of these recommendations do not work, the CDC experts recommend
seeing a doctor.