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Take
Sleep Seriously
(HealthScoutNews)
-- While we struggle to stay on appropriate diets and take great
pains to squeeze exercise into our busy days, many Americans pay
little attention to another health issue of critical importance
-- sleep.
Most adults
don't get the recommended eight hours of sleep needed for good
health, safety and optimum performance. And almost 70 percent
of 1,004 adults surveyed in a recent poll reported experiencing
frequent sleep problems, which they had not had diagnosed.
"Far too often,
the thing we sacrifice in order to cram as much as we can into
a day is sleep. Yet sleep is as important as food and exercise,"
says Marcia Stein, spokeswoman for the National Sleep Foundation,
which ran the poll.
"Sleep is
food for the brain, and we don't function on our best level if
we don't have adequate sleep," she adds. "When people are tired,
it causes all sorts of problems."
Dr. Mark Mahowald,
director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorder Center, says
the most serious problems occurs when a tired person gets behind
the wheel of a car.
"Car crashes
resulting from drivers falling asleep probably kill more people
under the age of 25 than alcohol-related crashes," he says.
"Our society
is very aware that it's inappropriate to drive or go to work intoxicated.
But we are not ready to acknowledge the fact that sleep deprivation
is also something that you shouldn't have behind the wheel," Mahowald
says.
The extent
of the sleep problem has prompted the NSF to launch a campaign
that includes a free self-assessment guide to help people identify
possible sleep problems.
The guide,
available on the NSF's Web site (see below), features a checklist
for symptoms of sleep problems and encourages people to discuss
any symptoms with their doctor.
Symptoms that
may indicate a problem include:
- Feeling
sleepy or dozing off while watching TV, reading, driving or
performing daily activities;
- Trouble
with sleep at least three nights a week. The problems can include
difficulty falling asleep, waking frequently during the night,
waking too early and not being able to get back to sleep, or
waking up for the day but not feeling refreshed;
- Loud snoring.
The survey
also found that daytime sleepiness affected almost one-quarter
of the adults interviewed, to the extent it interfered with their
activities at least a few days a week.
But perhaps
one of the most surprising findings was that those polled said
they would sleep more if they believed it would benefit their
overall health, safety and well-being.
"This shows
that people often don't connect sleep with healthier lifestyles,"
Stein says. "They just are not taking sleep seriously. People
will report feeling sleepy during the day, and they accept this
state of fatigue instead of trying to do something about it."
Mahowald says
that in today's career-driven society, there's little sympathy
for workers who are simply tired.
"There's a
pervasive attitude that sleepiness is of no consequence, or even
is a sign of character defect. It's 'if you're hard-working and
tough, you're just not going to succumb to sleepiness,' which
is not true."
Visit the
National Sleep Foundation
for more information on sleep problems and to see the sleep assessment
guide.
Reference
Source 101
For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
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