Sleep deprivation is
rampant in offices across America, according to three recent studies, and now
new research points to the likely culprit: electronics usage.
More
than one out of three adults get less than 7 hours of sleep a night, and 38%
report unintentionally falling asleep during the day at least once in the past
month, according to the Centers for
Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
The
annual Sleep in America poll by the National Sleep
Foundation, released today, suggests the cause is the widespread use
of electronics at night.
·
About 95% of people use some type of electronics in the hour
before bed, whether it's watching TV, surfing the internet, playing video games
or texting.
·
The youngest generation of adults, Gen Y'ers (19 to 29 year
olds), are the biggest users of interactive electronics, like cell phones and
the internet. They are more than eight times as likely as baby boomers (46 to
64 year olds) to text in the hour before bedtime--52% of them texted compared
to 5% of boomers.
·
About 19% of respondents sent or received work related emails
before bed.
What do
electronics have to do with sleep deprivation--and job performance? The
National Sleep Foundation surveyed 1508 people and found:
·
People who text before bed were less likely to get a good
night's sleep, more likely to wake up tired, to be characterized as sleepy, and
more likely to drive while feeling drowsy.
·
Three quarters of those over 30 who reported not getting enough
sleep said their sleepiness affected their work.
Gen
Y'ers can also blame Facebook. About
63% of 20 something’s use a social networking site before bed, compared to 34%
of gen X'ers (30 to
45 year olds) and only 18% of boomers. They're also twice as likely to play
video games in that hour, and much more likely to Skype, watch videos on the
computer or talk on their cell phone. Gen
X'ers fall somewhere in between but their pre-bedtime behaviors are more
similar to boomers than their younger colleagues.
It's
not just the post grads who are losing sleep. A whopping 64% of all those who
responded to the National Sleep Foundation survey said they woke up during the
night and 61% said they woke up the next morning feeling un-refreshed at least
a few days a week.
"Electronics
are making it very enticing to stay up later," says Charles A. Czeisler, M.D., a co-author of
the survey and the director of division of sleep medicine at Harvard's Brigham
& Women's Hospital in Boston. "You have 500 cable channels, 24/7
entertainment and technologies, video gaming available around the clock. How
bad something is for you depends on the extent to which it is captivating you
and tempting you not to sleep."
Passive
technologies, like watching TV and listening to music may be more calming than
interactive electronics like video games, cell phones and the internet because
they tend to be less engaging. "The hypothesis is that the latter devices
are more alerting and disrupt the sleep-onset process," says Michael Gradisar, Ph.D, a co-author of
the study. But TV is more pervasive in
bedrooms across the country, and can keep people up much longer than they
normally would if they were just flipping through a magazine before bedtime.
Plus,
artificial light--whether from a light bulb or your computer screen--suppresses
the release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, making it take longer to
fall asleep.
Here
are tips from sleep experts on how to have a better night's sleep so you can
function better at work (and to avoid the myriad health problems that are associated with chronically being sleep deprived).
1. Get off the grid. Set a "bedtime
alarm" 45 to
60 minutes before your bedtime as a reminder to turn off all electronics and
begin to wind down.
2. If you can't bring yourself to do step 1, then try to watch TV,
listen to music or use an E-reader rather
than using your computer or cell phone. But set a specific time that you will
turn those off as well.
3. Keep your cell phone out of the bedroom. About 10 % of us are awakened from our sleep by the cell phone
at least a few times a week (more often for younger people).
4. Put all work related paraphernalia away in the hour before bed, so
you're not thinking about work when trying to nod off.
5. Start dimming your lights a couple of hours before bed. Avoid
bright lights, and keep a dimmer in the bathroom, so you're not being exposed
to bright lights while you're getting washed before bed.
6. Don't drink caffeinated beverages for six to nine hours before
you go to sleep.
Do you think you're sleep deprived, and what
could help you get more sleep?
~source CBS Money Mattes
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