Are Sleep Experts Right?
Over the past few decades, the very act of looking busy has attracted praise from society. The theory has often been that if you are booked and busy, then you are advancing society in one way or another. But if you have enough time to take naps or even get a full night of sleep, then you are literally sleeping on your skills and are ‘lazy.’ So, for fear of getting left behind or being cut off from society, people have often neglected getting quality sleep and instead focused their efforts on advancing their careers, education, families, and more. But does this come at a cost? Yes.
For us to understand these costs and why sleep experts are now pushing for people to get more shut-eye, we have to understand how sleep affects us across our lifespans, as follows:
Infancy through Childhood
Many parents openly share their children’s sleep struggles, which range from getting up often at night to not sleeping on their schedules. In some cases, the parents throw in the towel and allow their children to just be. But as studies have shown, parents cannot afford to loosen the reins when it comes to sleep. After all, it plays an essential role in the following activities:
Brain Development
Children heavily rely on sleep to process new information that they learned during the day, such as language, solving problems, and even coordination. Infants, for example, spend up to 50% of their sleep in the dream stage (REM sleep), which helps their brains process all the sensory input they have had while also making sense of what they should keep and what they can do without. For example, when babies are learning how to talk or walk, sleep helps them process these new skills, and they tend to perform well if they are continuously getting enough rest. It thus follows that without enough sleep, children end up with information overload that makes their brains less efficient at learning.
Physical Growth
Parents encourage their children to eat more to grow. But did you know that growth heavily relies on adequate sleep? When children go to sleep, their growth hormone levels increase, paving the way for muscle growth, tissue repair, bone lengthening, and more. At the same time, sleep supports immune system maturation. As such, you find that children who sleep enough grow faster and are less vulnerable to infections compared to their sleep-deprived counterparts.
Behavior
On top of helping children grow and learn better, sleep also helps them regulate their emotions. You see, when children are in REM sleep, they go through different scenarios that help them process their feelings, such that they wake up feeling quite calm. But if their sleep is not enough or is poor in quality, they do not get to do this, and this often results in behavioral issues such as irritability and impulsiveness. There have even been cases of ADHD misdiagnoses where medical professionals initially thought that children had ADHD, only to later find out that a child’s behavior was due to sleep deprivation.
To reap these and more benefits, health professionals recommend that infants get anywhere from 12 to 16 hours of daily sleep, while children can make do with 10 to 13 hours.
Adolescence
Puberty comes with many changes, and for many children, these include shifts in their circadian rhythms. They go from waking up with the rising of the sun and sleeping early in the night to sleeping later at night while still keeping up with early waking times. As you can imagine, this mismatch often results in less sleep. But does this matter? According to research, the answer is yes, and it ties to the following reasons:
Brain Function
As children go through the transition from childhood to adulthood, their levels of independence and responsibility increase such that they have to start thinking as soon-to-be adults. Sleeping helps them with this. How? During deep sleep, the body focuses on cognitive development in key areas such as planning, controlling impulses, and making decisions. But that’s not all. The brain also uses this time to consolidate new information, be it from class or life experiences. This way, adolescent children who get enough sleep are able to do well, not just in school but also in other areas of their lives where executive function is necessary. On the contrary, you find that risky behaviors, such as substance abuse and reckless driving, have a close association with poor sleep.
Emotional Regulation
Everyone who has been around adolescent children knows that their moods tend to be a bit all over the place. But guess what? Sometimes, it is not their emotions speaking but rather their lack of sleep. Studies show that when adolescent children are asleep, their bodies regulate their neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and dopamine, which have an effect on their moods. Those who get enough sleep experience fewer emotional shifts, while those who do not get enough sleep experience more mood swings. What’s more, sleep deprivation puts adolescent children at a higher risk of mood disorders such as depression and anxiety due to the imbalance in these neurotransmitters.
Physical Health
Just like infants and younger children, adolescents are still actively growing, and they rely on their sleep to fuel the changes in their bodies. Sleep also plays a vital role in hormonal regulation. Take appetite as an example. Adolescents who do not get enough sleep tend to have higher hunger levels and lower fullness levels due to disruptions in their leptin and ghrelin hormones. As such, they are more likely to overeat, which predisposes them to obesity and its related health issues.
According to sleep experts, getting 8 to 10 hours of sleep during adolescence is pivotal to meeting all these needs.
Early to Mid-Adulthood
With people starting families, advancing in their careers, chasing degrees, maintaining relationships, and trying to carve out time for hobbies, the twenty-four hours in a day just don’t seem enough. So, they start by cutting out what they think they can do without. And for many people, this includes sleep. But can adults do without sleep? No. The truth is that even in adulthood, people still need to get enough rest for the following reasons:
Mental Productivity
When adults sleep, they go through several sleep cycles during which their brains make sense of all the new information they have gathered. Furthermore, their brains simulate different scenarios during REM sleep where they get to solve problems, explore their creativity, and process their emotions. With all these activities taking place in the background, adults who get enough sleep wake up feeling focused, such that they can tackle challenges with a clear mind. But those who skimp out on sleep do not have such clarity. In fact, their brains can be so tired that they can trigger micro-sleeps during the day. You find that these adults have slower reaction times and impaired judgment, which affects their behavior in the workplace and other areas of their lives. While reduced productivity may not be an issue in some cases, it can be a life-or-death scenario in some professions, such as medicine and truck driving.
Physical Well-Being
It’s not just children who rely on sleep to recover physically. Research has shown that when adults get enough deep sleep, their muscles and tissues go through repair processes that help them recover from daily wear and tear. That is why athletes often need a lot of sleep to see gains from all their training and will often reiterate that muscle recovery happens during sleep. Aside from muscle repair, adults also need enough sleep to regulate the hormones that influence different processes in their bodies, ranging from digestion to stress control, all of which have an effect on their health. Take cortisol levels as an example. Where adults are not getting enough sleep, their cortisol levels rise, and this can increase the inflammation in their bodies, predisposing them to a wide range of chronic illnesses.
Emotional Stability
Life comes with all sorts of challenges. And while two people may be facing the same issue, their attitudes and resilience toward it may differ just because of their sleep patterns. So, where is the link? Sleep helps adults regulate their emotions through REM and stage 2 (light) sleep, such that the more sleep an adult gets, the more resilient they feel in the wake of challenges. But where an adult does not get enough of these sleep stages, they have difficulty regulating their emotions. They tend to have more emotional burnout and are more at risk of mood disorders, including anxiety and depression. That is why many doctors often inquire about sleeping habits, as these are a window into a person’s emotional well-being.
But how much sleep do adults need to enjoy these and other benefits? The current recommendation is 7 to 9 hours, though some adults may do better with more or less sleep.
Late Adulthood
People’s priorities tend to change for the better as they grow older. You find that they start paying more attention to their health, social ties, and other aspects of their lives that have a positive effect on them. But is sleep a winner in this shift? Not always. Even as older adults slow down to reap the benefits of all their hard work over the decades, many of them tend to neglect their sleep. However, they, too, need to get enough sleep, as it affects them in the following ways:
Memory Preservation
As a society, we have come to believe that as people grow older, they tend to forget things. But as studies show, memory loss and old age do not always go hand in hand. If anything, much of the memory loss we see in old age stems from poor sleeping habits. The thing is that sleep is essential for memory consolidation at all ages. So, if older adults do not get enough of it, their hippocampal function, which is integral to consolidating their memories, takes a hit, and this affects their ability to process short-term memories and even learn new things. Sleep deprivation has even been linked with Alzheimer’s. Given that sleep paves the way for the clearing of beta-amyloid plaques, scientists have found that people with poor sleep do not get enough of this clearance, and over time, this increases their risk of Alzheimer’s.
Immune Function
Older adults often have weaker immune systems compared to their younger counterparts, and they thus often come down with several infections. But it turns out that this susceptibility varies based on the amount of sleep that they get. Those who sleep well have fewer instances of getting ill compared to those who do not. In addition to this, older adults who sleep well respond better to flu shots and other vaccines compared to their counterparts who often exhibit adverse side effects.
Cardiovascular Health
We have often been told that eating nutritious food and engaging in aerobic exercise are good ways to maintain good heart health. Now, doctors are adding that getting enough sleep also helps older adults improve their heart health. And that is because sleep regulates blood pressure as well as heart rate, resulting in optimal heart health. But when people do not sleep well, this regulation does not take place, and this increases their risk of conditions such as heart disease and stroke. To make matters more complex, sleep disorders, which result in poor sleep, can complicate heart health. Sleep apnea, for example, has been shown to cause cardiovascular problems if it goes untreated.
While the current sleep recommendations for adults aged 65 and above are 7 to 8 hours of sleep a day, the truth is that many adults in this age group struggle with fragmented sleep and thus do not meet this quota, both in quality and quantity of sleep.
The Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Public Health
Looking at the current statistics, we can tell that there is a very evident gap between how much sleep people are getting and what research recommends. Take children, for instance. Studies show that 1 in every 3 infants has sleep issues. At the same time, for every 4 children aged between 6 and 12 months, at least one of them suffers from night waking. Moving on to adolescents, the scenario gets worse, with studies showing that at least 50% of teenagers worldwide are sleep-deprived. In the US, for example, 57% of middle schoolers and 72% of high schoolers are affected by this sleep deficit. And as you can imagine, these problems carry on through adulthood, where chronic sleep problems such as sleep apnea and insomnia become more prevalent.
But do these numbers hold water in the context of public health? Why, yes! The more sleep-deprived we are as a society, the more likely we are to face the issues below:
Safety Lapses
Did you know that sleep deprivation is behind many of the accidents we see in the world? Sleep-related fatigue dulls our reaction times and judgment. And it comes into play in various instances, from traffic accidents to workplace injuries, where people pose a danger to others. What’s more, it plays a part in workplace errors, such as when overworked doctors prescribe the wrong medications to their patients.
Economic Slowdowns
Employees often think that pulling long hours and sacrificing their sleep is beneficial to their productivity. And with their employers encouraging them to do this through strategies such as overtime, the notion is often that less sleep equals productivity. But recent economic reports show the contrary. In countries where people are sleeping more and working less, the GDPs are on the rise, but in countries where sleep-deprived workers are clocking in, the GDPs are falling. According to researchers, this disparity owes to a loss in productivity. You see, when workers are not well-rested, their mental alertness and productivity levels decrease such that they work at slower rates and are more likely to make mistakes, both of which are detrimental to the organizational output. And given that sleep deprivation is often a national issue, then this loss in productivity does not just affect one industry, but several industries, resulting in lower national output and thus GDP.
The Rise in Chronic Diseases
Have you noticed the increase in the number of chronic diseases over the past few decades? For a while, doctors pointed their fingers at people’s junk food diets and sedentary lifestyles. But now, they have added sleep into the mix. Given how influential sleep is in hormone regulation, doctors have realized that when people are not getting enough sleep, their bodies are unable to maintain balance when it comes to factors such as hunger levels, stress, digestion, and more. These imbalances put people at risk of conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. As such, more public health campaigns now urge people to sleep enough to protect their health.
Mental Health Breakdown
We live in a world where mental health conversations have become the norm. People are openly talking about depression, anxiety, and other issues affecting their well-being. But while medications and tons of treatments exist for these mental health conditions, psychologists are increasingly coming out to share that sleep can actually buffer people against these conditions. Since it helps people regulate their neurotransmitters, it can restore balance to their systems and thus help many people avoid these negative mental health outcomes.
The truth is that we function better as a society when we are all getting enough rest. Not only do children do well in school and at home, but employees are more productive, patients recover faster, and people are calmer, more patient, and happier. While sleep does not erase all life’s challenges as we know them, it creates a buffer between us and these hurdles, thus making us more resilient as individuals and as a community.
Can We Meet the Recommended Hours?
We have stated that adequate sleep is essential for our physical health, mental clarity, cognitive function, and emotional balance at all stages in life, with varying recommended hours per age group. But can we achieve these quotas? Absolutely. Here are some of the most effective sleep strategies designed to address the sleep challenges we face at every age:
- Infants and children. At this age, children need consistency in their bedtime routines. Additionally, studies show that they benefit from limited screen time before bed as well as quiet sleeping environments.
- Adolescents. Given their propensity to stay up late, parents should encourage adolescents to stick to a set sleep schedule and avoid late-night scrolling. Where possible, adjusting their wakeup times to align with their new circadian rhythms can be helpful.
- Young to mid adults. Many adults tend to rely on caffeine to stay awake. Limiting it close to bedtime is a game-changer. Doctors also advise adults in this age group to exercise frequently and practice mindfulness to alleviate their stress.
- Older adults. Even with fragmented sleep cycles, sticking to a consistent schedule is important, as is avoiding long naps and getting adequate movement during the day.
It is important to note that everyone is different, and what works for one person in one age group might not necessarily be what works for others within the same age bracket. As such, experimenting with various strategies is always a good idea.